Russia wants to equate Telegram with pirated resources

The Russian Association for the Protection of Copyright on the Internet (AZAPI) seeks help from the Securities Commissionand US exchanges (SEC) in an attempt to recognize Telegram as a pirate resource.

Representative of the interests of Russian publishersbelieves that Telegram should be included in the list of international pirate resources – “Special Report 301” – as a distributor of counterfeit content. 

The letter sent to the SEC indicatesthe growing number of "copyright infringements" on Telegram. The association claims that the messenger refuses to block pirate channels, encourages their cloning and distributes illegal copies. The association noted the existence of more than 170 large channels that offer illegal copies of books.

The upcoming launch of the Telegram Open Network (TON) and the Gram cryptocurrency are also of extreme concern to AZAPI.

According to them, these tools are designed toincome from the sale of counterfeit content and convenient laundering of illegal funds by clandestine traders. The Telegram cryptocurrency will only aggravate the situation with piracy and allow the messenger to distribute a subscription to pirated content and sell advertising to channel owners completely anonymously. A decentralized system of IP-addresses of the messenger makes it impossible to track the owners of pirated channels and the transfer of funds.

The Russian Association hopes that set out inLetters of fact will help the US regulator in a legal confrontation with Telegram, and that at the hearing in February next year, the issue of Gram cryptocurrency will be frozen by the US ship system.