PRESS: Digital ministry wants foreign firms’ software licensed

MOSCOW, Dec 29 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Digital Development Ministry is discussing a bill to license forcibly software of the companies that left the country and uproot illegal use of their programs with market participants, business daily Kommersant reported on Thursday.

Dmitry Nikitin, head of the ministry’s IT industry development department, said in a letter to Public Consumer Initiative that in the conditions of the retreat of foreign software developers, the matter of its use “becomes urgent and needs regulation.”

According to the document, the government is mulling special terms of exploitation of foreign software for which the law-obedient Russian users are unable fulfil contract obligations.

A source familiar with the discussion said that the ministry and the market participants are considering a bill that “decriminalizes” the illegal use of software of the foreign companies that stopped supporting and upgrading it, and that launches a mechanism of its enforced licensing.

Russian clients are supposed to pay to a special account, and the copyright holders will get the money on demand.

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