Features of Proof in Cases of Violation of Copyright and Neighboring Rights

Qualitative consideration and resolution of disputes in courts ensures the effective protection of intellectual property. At the same time, the issuing of lawful and justified decisions is greatly influence by such a procedural institution as proof. The aim of this research is to investigate the issue of the features of evidence in cases of violation of copyright and related rights in order to identify of general trends in law enforcement practice and to form proposals to improve legislation in this area. Setting such goal has necessitated the solution of the following tasks: 1. To define the concept of the subject of proof, its structure; 2. To give a general description of the evidence used in resolving these disputes; 3. To identify the features of assessing evidence; 4. To analyses the distribution of the burden of proof and the specific application of legal presumptions. The main goal of the current study is to determine what features exist in the process of proving for such a category of cases as copyright and related disputes. This study has identified that the subject of proof in this category of cases includes the fact of the protection of the work and the fact of violation of copyright or related rights. The second major finding is that for this category of cases, information obtained from the Internet as evidence is of particular importance. At present, in the court practice, to establish the author of a musical work, such services are used as: Shazam, allmusic.com and music.yandex.ru. Thus, this type of evidence must be included in the arbitration procedural code of the Russian Federation. Thirdly, to effective protection the rights of authors or rights holders, a large number of legal presumptions have been legislated to balance the legal status of a more vulnerable party in the process.