America, Forward!

American democracy is 237 years old. Russian democracy is 10 times younger — only 21 years old. Naturally, our legal system is somewhat behind the United States’. America passed a law on foreign agents in 1938, a law which we only passed this year, and came up with age ratings for movies in 1968, something which we only did last year. It is the same story with copyright laws. We, of course, are catching up to the U.S. — but she has a head start.

The latest suggestion is to introduce a new law in Russia criminalizing the recording of films from cinema screens, to create a federal registry of copyright and to require Internet search engines to, and I quote, “prioritize in their search results links to websites containing legal information.” And, finally, our lawmakers have begun to speak about criminalizing not only the distribution, but also the use of counterfeit goods. In the law “On information, information technologies and information protection,” the term “user file-sharing network” is introduced. And if the amendments pass, then any Russian who torrents movies could receive harsh penalties.

Now then, all this is wonderful and has come at the right time. But, as I said earlier, our legal system is 10 times younger than America’s — if, of course, you don’t count the law banning foreign adoption.

And so, all these measures which are just about to be passed in the State Duma have long been part of the United States’ laws. The users of file-sharing networks have gone to court. And as for recording from a cinema screen in the U.S.? Straight to Guantanamo!

And what happened? Nothing. None of this works. Piracy is not decreasing. For this reason, instead of our new laws I would propose moving straight away toward what is now being discussed in the U.S. Congress — that is, permission to use computer viruses in the fight against piracy. They are proposing to force all computers to be installed with a program which could detect counterfeit programs and lock the computer. Only the police could unlock the computer, after the owner admitted to using pirated content. And in this case the confession, of course, could be used against the computer’s owner.

Personally, I have no doubt whatsoever that even this measure will not work. And the next democratic measure after this one will be to blow up the computer with a charge built in at the factory when a pirated movie is being watched and a complete ban on the use of computers for the guilty party.

And in the adoption of this last resort, by the way, we could overtake the Americans.

Soviet experience cannot be exchanged for democracy.