The Akushinsky District Court in Dagestan ruled in favor of singer Magomedrasul Kurbanmagomedov, who filed suit to show that the Russian Union of Rights Holders, headed by filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, was illegally registered and therefore has no right to collect royalties from producers of recordings, Vedomosti reported Wednesday.
According to Azamat Shapiyev, a lawyer for the Russian Copyright Society who represented Kurbanmagomedov in court, Russian law and the union's charter both require that the union's membership consist of copyright holders.
The Russian Union of Rights Holders was founded in 2009 by the All-
Russia Intellectual Property Organization, Russian Author's Society and Russian Union of Cinematographers, as well as Nikolai Denisov, Leonid Vereshchagin and Alexander Klevitsky.
(MT)
