Telegram faces Legal Proceedings in Russia for circulating pirated books

Russia's renowned and one of the largest publishers, Eksmo-AST has recently filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Telegram. It alleged Telegram of allowing its subscribers to circulate the copies of Stephen King and Dmitry Glukhovsky books on its platform. The main aim of the plaintiff was to receive orders from the court blocking Telegram in the whole of Russia but the anti-piracy group which is involved in the action found a better solution of introducing the technology of fingerprinting.

Telegram is today's true internet giant messaging platform with more than 500 million monthly active users. Co-founder Pavel Durov stated in an interview, “Telegram was the world’s most downloaded app in the month of January 2021 and is also supported by a user base that is growing by 40% every year since its launch in 2013.”

It is also a fact with which everyone will agree that apart from telegram's millions of regular users; it is also used as an alternate platform by some to access pirated content. This mere fact not only became the reason behind criticism of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) but also made a place on the EU’s ‘piracy watch list’. Telegram has also been told to take relevant actions to block pirated content or else it would face blocking itself.

The Eksmo-AST is Russia’s largest publisher and is also well-known for its anti-piracy work which includes its significant role in the permanent ISP block that was placed on giant torrent site RuTracker. The company has also targeted other big giants including YouTube and Google for the same reason of allegedly hosting piracy apps. Now it is time for Telegram.

Publishing companies AST and Eksmo filed a pair of lawsuits against Telegram where they were seen claiming that the messenger platform took no actions to remove the infringing content from its platform. Both companies are a part of the Eksmo-AST group.

Finally, the Eksmo-AST group has successfully received an order in their favor from the Moscow City Court of a preliminary injunction. This means that books by Stephen King and Dmitry Glukhovsky now can be blocked by consumer ISPs under the orders of telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor.