
Russia blocks Premier League broadcasts by Amazon's Twitch over lawsuit - omgtehlion
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-amazon-twitch/russia-blocks-premier-league-broadcasts-by-amazons-twitch-over-lawsuit-idUSKBN1YK0NN
======
drawkbox
> _According to the information of the newspaper Kommersant, Rambler Group
> demands through the court to “stop the spread of pirated broadcasts” and to
> recover a record 180 billion rubles. (about $ 2.9 billion) from the world 's
> largest streaming service Twitch. Yulianna Tabastaeva, a representative of
> Twitch in court, announced that the requirements of the Rambler Group, in
> addition to paying compensation, also include a complete blocking of the
> Twitch service for users in Russia._

We are fully into the state/corporate/mafia extortion and authoritarian phase
of the internet and technology.

I miss the old internet that was anti-authoritarian and still growing creating
value.

The internet and technology around it has peaked, value creation phases nearly
complete, value extraction phase underway.

Next step a breakup of the worldwide united internet union and more value
extraction along borders and corporate tribes requiring bribes.

~~~
zozbot234
This is not about 'authoritarian control' whatever that might mean, it's
"just" about copyright enforcement - specifically, media rights over English
Premier League matches, of all things. Claims that some comparatively-trivial
copyright violation accounts for "billions of dollars" in economic impact are
nothing new.

~~~
zzzcpan
_> This is not about 'authoritarian control' whatever that might mean, it's
"just" about copyright enforcement _

It is in Russia, it's more like an excuse to block Twitch. Sberbank, the
parent company of Rambler, is also a Kremlin's right hand and has been doing
this kind of stuff since forever. For example, this was the company to which
Yandex was forced to sell the controlling "golden share".

~~~
LessDmesg
Sberbank is also behind recent Nginx extortion raids.

~~~
gdy
Any proof?

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Andrew_nenakhov
It's Rambler Rampage week! First, Nginx, now Twitch. By Friday I expect them
to call a FSB raid on Yandex offices for taking their share of internet search
market in early 00s.

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pepemon
This is the same company that threatens Igor Sysoev and Moscow NGINX office.

~~~
drawkbox
Once Is Chance, Twice is Coincidence, Third Time Is A Pattern

Looks like this may be a policy either at the oligopoly/oligarch, corporate or
authoritarian state level.

I'd argue that twice is already a pattern.

~~~
mapcars
Some people linked to it few years ago took over one of big businesses in
Russia threatening it's owner and forcing him out of the country.

So it's 3, or at least 3.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroset](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroset)

------
acqq
(Edit: the following was written as the post linked to some source which was
Google Translated)

Reading to the end, the title is as on HN is wrong (edited and it doesn't
include the last update). The last paragraph there is now:

"Updating publication # 3: According to TASS, Mikhail Gershkovich, sports
project manager at Rambler Group, said: “At the moment, negotiations are
ongoing with Twitch to sign a settlement agreement. The service gave us the
tools to combat pirated broadcasts, and _now we are only talking about
compensation for damage_ caused from August to November 2019. _" It turns out
that the sum of the claims in the Rambler Group lawsuit was proposed by an
external attorney in charge of the case. “The amount is technical and the
maximum possible, it will be clarified,” concluded Gershkovich._"

------
bhhaskin
This link is giving me a ssl error on both Firefox and chrome on Android. Bad
cert domain.

~~~
Thorrez
www.reuters.com ? It loads for me in both Firefox and Chrome on Android. The
SSL labs report looks good, in particular it includes good trust chains for
all browsers/operating systems. What IP does it resolve to for you? Is it
possible you're being MITMed? What certificate is being presented to you?

[https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.reuters.c...](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.reuters.com)

~~~
bhhaskin
The link was changed it was pointing to a Google doc link of some kind.

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tw04
Hey look, the same guys who went after nginx. This just tells me all those
sanctions on Russian billionaires is working and they're looking for an avenue
to strike back at the West.

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ga-vu
Normally, companies would go after the users committing the copyright
infringement, not the platform. This is just a money-grab. Similar to how they
went after NGINX.

------
varelaz
I wouldn't link this with nginx pursue. Rambler is very big company (something
like Yahoo in Russian) and in this case claim looks reasonable. Off course
amount looks shocking high, but as it was mentioned it's maximum possible and
likely at the end it will be 1000 times smaller. It's kind of red marker for
Twitch to react faster, nothing else.

~~~
gritzko
Rambler is an intellectual-property remnant of a big internet company. A
troll.

~~~
orthoxerox
So, something like Yahoo?

