Russia Prosecuting Online Infringement. For the WTO?

The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation provides for those convicted of copyright infringement to forfeit up to 18 months of their wages, among other possible punishments including jail time or work-relief.  (Art. 146.) 

Rumor has it that though Russia has these laws on her books, their enforcement has been less ideal.  According to an AFP story on Yahoo! News, Russia is working to change that.  The proposed motive: entry into the WTO.

The Recent Enforcement

Basic story-line, young man uploads music tracks to a social networking site without permission from the copyright owner.  Other users download the songs.  In this case, the Russian music tracks uploaded by the young man were downloaded over 200,000 times by other users.  The young man was caught and prosecution charges filed.

High-profile raids to confiscate infringing goods have also increased in the move to step-up enforcement.

The WTO Relationship

According to the AFP story, Russia is increasing its copyright enforcement in order to finally join the WTO, a process it began in 1993.  The article states, “Russia's inability to implement any meaningful form of copyright protection has been one of the main issues raised by the United States during the latest rounds of two sides' World Trade Organization negotiations.”

Some other research sheds some doubt on this reasoning.  Russian WTO negotiations with IP-promoting Western governments have been going well recently.  The EU backed Russia for WTO admittance late last year and negotiations with the US have been progressing with the support of President Obama.  (See here, here and here.)  And while there is some discussion of intellectual property enforcement being a problem, the major barriers remaining are more likely tariffs.

This is not to say that increased enforcement will not help Russia in its bid for the WTO, but merely to suggest that it is not quite as an important factor as the AFP story suggests.  At the very least, such enforcement should help get Russia removed from the Priority Watchlist in the infamous Special 301 Report (pdf).

Ignorance of the Law, an Excuse?

Throughout my childhood my father used to tell me, “Ignorance is no excuse for the law.”  It didn’t matter whether I was jaywalking or learning the hard way that glass jars of pickles don’t bounce; ignorance was no excuse.  Well it looks like there may be one time when ignorance is an excuse.  But I’m in doubt.

Criminal Charges under US Copyright Act Dropped

Many readers may have been following the USA v. Crippen case on other sites.  - Wired has a fairly detailed running account of the case. – This is the case in which California resident Matthew Crippen was criminally charged for violations of the US Copyright Act.  It was to be the first criminal case addressing a violation of the Copyright Act’s restriction against circumvents technical protection measures (TPMs) designed to protect copyrighted works.  “Was” because this past week the prosecution dropped the charges.
The many reports on the prosecution’s decision list a number of factors leading to the decision to drop charges.  Rumors of prosecutorial misconduct and concerns about the jury learning of crimes committed by the prosecution’s witnesses are two of the reasons mentioned.  (See Wired, above, and TechSpot for more on these reasons.)  But it seems like the main reason, which is related to both of these, is Judge Gutierrez’s decision that the prosecution would need to prove that Crippen knew he was violating the law.  (“The government said it would have dropped the case if that more onerous standard was required.” Wired.)

Looking for “Knowledge”

I’m still trying to figure this one out.  According to Wired (specific article link), “Gutierrez ruled that the government had to prove Crippen knew he was breaking the law by modding Xboxes.”  Maybe there’s a nuance that got missed or misinterpreted somewhere between the judge and Wired.
Crippen was modifying X-Boxes, allegedly so that they would play pirated games.  From what I can gather, the statute Crippen was charged for violating was 17 USC 1201.  I am not sure if it was part (a) for “circumventing a technical measure” or part (b) for “circumventing protection afforded by a technical measure.”  However, the rest of the provisions in each section are parallel so we can look into the knowledge element without knowing with which specific provision Crippen was charged.

Subsections (A)

The first requirement, in § 1201 (a)(2)(A) and (b)(1)(A), is that the main purpose of the service be to circumvent a measure that effectively controls access to the work.  This could have a  knowledge element, requiring the defendant to know that the changes he was making would give access to works that were previously not accessible.  But knowing you’re getting access to something you couldn’t access before is not the same as knowing you are breaking the law.  So our knowledge of committing a crime being an element isn’t here.
-- NOTE: There’s a number of elements within this each Subsection.  I am only looking at potential knowledge elements.  For a great in-depth look at each element of the crime, see this post on bunnie studios by someone who was called as an expert witness in this case. --

Subsections (B)

The next subsection, (a)(2)(B) and (b)(1)(B), requires that any commercially significant purposes aside from allowing access to previously restricted items are limited.  No knowledge element there.

Subsections (C)

The last subsection requires that the service be marketed for use in circumventing a TPM.  This requires the same sort of knowledge element as subsection (A), the knowledge that the service is providing access to restricted works.  Again, there doesn’t appear to be anything suggesting that in order to violate this law the person circumventing the TPM needs to know that circumventing TPM is illegal.

So Where’s the Knowledge

Is there a knowledge element elsewhere in the DMCA or in the US Copyright Act that applies to this section?  What am I missing?  Do any of our readers have an idea why the judge would require the prosecution to prove that the defendant knew he was breaking the law?