The Secretary of the Russian Union Of Journalists Igor Yakovenko has managed to agree with three leading software companies about the unique action intended to help Russian media leaving the “grey zone”. Besides Russian branch of Microsoft, that has announced its willingness to give 40% discounts for the Russian media, on 5June same intentions were voiced by Adobe Systems (40%), 1C (40-60% discount for four of its products) and Kaspersky Laboratory (60% discount).    

It was in April this year that Igor Yakovenko announced about the joint unique action. Going to leave his post, Mr. Yakovenko still will be supervising a number of projects. The action in question with Microsoft Rus is one of them. It will last up to 1st July this year. The Russian media entities – printed, electronic, Internet media and news agencies –registered before 1st of April 2008, are entitled to take part in the action. The only restriction is that those bodies must be of a small size (up to 250 computers). As of today, 1,500 media bodies from all over Russia have expressed their wish to acquire the licensed software. Igor Yakovenko has stressed that it’s the frequent practice of criminal prosecution imposed on the media for the use of pirate software that is the main reason for the action going on. “Frankly speaking, we are not interested much to know what is happening in the software market. We got involved in this action to avoid the selective application of the legislature as a new form of censorship. 25 criminal cases had been started by the moment the action began”. And there have been no criminal cases since then.      

As for the new participants, 1C will finish the action on 30 June, while Abode Systems and Kaspersky Laboratory on 31 August.