Russian tech giant Rambler is suing Twitch for a total of 180 rubles ($2.87 billion USD). The company claims that Twitch has allowed users to re-stream matches owned by Okko Спорт, which is part of Rambler Group.

This is the second legal swipe Rambler has taken in less than a week. Last week, web hosting company Nginx offices were raided by Russian authorities after Rambler claimed to own rights over its open-source code. While no law enforcement has kicked down any doors in regards to Twitch, the previous actions of Rambler have set quite a tone for the internet company.

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Rambler claims 36 thousand cases of illegal restreams on Twitch that violate its ownership of UK Premier League matches. The company is demanding 5 million RUR for each violation. In addition, Rambler originally wanted authorities to block Twitch is Russia entirely, which was a huge upset last year, but has since demanded instead that the maximum possible fine be applied to each of the 36,000 views, totaling in 180,345 billion rubles, or 2.84 billion USD. Because the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not apply within Russia, the infringing cases are being treated individually instead of as a group.

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Twitch never received an official complaint from Ramble prior to the lawsuit but has done due diligence in removing violating channels that illegally stream. These infringements are met with permanent bans with no second thought, unlike the number of controversial bans Twitch has gone back on. This apparently is not enough for Rambler who is seeking compensation for damages already dealt. Furthermore, the only formal evidence sent to Twitch was a number of screenshots of pages without specific dates, which seems to be shaky evidence at best.

If America has a reputation for being sue-happy, then Russia seems to be after that title. Since the initial lawsuit announcement, Twitch has provided Rambler with tools to combat rights violations on its platform. Reportedly, Rambler only wants a portion of its insanely high compensation. A new sum, however, has not been reported.

There is a precedent regarding copyright violation on streaming and video sites like Twitch and YouTube. Rambler seems to be trying to change that precedent or is going to get its lawsuit chiseled down to a more reasonable number. The reason being that Twitch does not provide its own content; it's just a platform for others to do so. It's quite unreasonable to expect Twitch to have such a flawless grip on what is streamed at any given time. Reasonable attempts to hamper illegal streams should and are made.

The Moscow City Court is scheduled to hear Rambler's case against Twitch on Friday.

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Source: Reddit