COPYRIGHT VIOLATIONS ON THE INTERNET: LEGAL PROBLEMS AND WAYS TO OVERCOME THEM

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of legal problems and ways to overcome them in the field of copyright protection on the Internet. The development of the international Internet network, which gave impetus to mass informatization and intellectualization of the life of modern society, caused global problems related to the imperfection of legal protection mechanisms against illegal actions on the network, including increased the number of copyright violations. New challenges prompted the state to search for new effective ways to protect copyright, the study of which is the purpose of this article. The main problems that contribute to the commission of copyright violations on the Internet are: anonymity of use; cross-border, interactive and virtual principle of network activity; the difficulty of establishing types of social ties and types of legal relations; problems with establishing the exact time of using the network and the legal personality of its users. Copyright today is protected by law, and their violation is subject to serious sanctions. Of particular importance is the new protection procedure, which is provided for by article 52-1 of the Law of Ukraine “On Copyright and Related Law” was introduced in 2017. It includes the possibility to contact the owner of the site with a demand to stop actions that violate copyright. This procedure was borrowed from the USA, namely from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, one of the most progressive laws in the world on this issue. However, the specified national procedure for the protection of copyrights against infringements using the Internet is not without its shortcomings: it is applied only in case of infringement of property rights, it is not mandatory; the applicant has the opportunity to apply for the termination of the infringement exclusively through the representation (mediation) of a lawyer; will have an effective character only when addressing the owner of the site, which falls under the jurisdiction of Ukraine. Despite the shortcomings of the mentioned procedure, the practice of its application, taking into account international experience, should have a positive effect on further ways of improvement. In this regard, scientific studies of the problems of copyright protection on the Internet remain undeniably relevant.