As CEETV has reported, major international media conglomerates which operate niche channels have decided to leave Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Russian pay TV operators do not disclose to subscribers the reasons for the switch-off of Western channels. They inform that "technical works" are in progress or they ensure that the channels will be restarted in the near future. On March 6, the Russian government issued a decree that would allow for the copying of reserved designs and inventions of "hostile countries" with impunity. Wprost informs that, as a result of the government decree, there is a complete suspension of intellectual property rights in relation to entities that have withdrawn from that market.

What do such provisions mean in practice? Russian pay TV operators can offer TV stations that have withdrawn from that market. This means that among others the Premier League may return illegally on the Russian air. On the other hand, productions of Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services can be illegally "borrowed" by Russian broadcasters. Russia may also turn a blind eye to pirated IPTV services with TV channels and VOD content from all over the world. Many of them resemble ordinary operators.

Russians can already buy illegal passwords from over a dozen thousand stations from around the world for less than PLN 10 a month via the Chinese auction site. Lists include Russian language channels disabled in the Russian Federation. These are broadcasts for the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, where a significant part of the population speaks Russian. It happens that pirate streams are also used by broadcasters from poorer countries.

After the legalization of piracy, such situations, this time with the participation of Russian broadcasters, can be much more common. For now, Russian pay TV operators have not decided to re-broadcast the removed stations.