Culture and authority: New bill “On culture” introduced to the State Duma

The work on drafting a new bill "On culture" is completed. The document has been submitted to the State Duma for consideration, and the text posted on the website of the Duma Committee for Culture. At a press conference held on October 27, 2011, the developers of the project insisted that the law should guarantee the citizens ‘free access to culture, creative freedom and the preservation of cultural heritage’. But most importantly it is designed to change attitudes to culture in society.

The work on the project of the new basic law “On culture” has been carried out for three years and was accompanied with arguments and discussions.

“At various stages of preparation for the introduction, various options were proposed. Now that we have a bill in the Duma, it united all the proposals of culture figures. And we recorded that to the development of the bill have contributed the Public Chamber and the Ministry of Culture and the Culture Committee of the State Duma", - says the chairman of the State Duma Committee for Culture of the Russian Federation Grigory Ivliev.

The current consolidated project is now the only one. It is meant to replace “The bases of the legislation of the Russian Federation on culture” with accordance to which the cultural sector has been functioning since 1992, when the Russian Constitution did not even exist. The new document uses different terms. “Cultural environment”, “cultural diversity”, “non-material cultural heritage”. It demonstrates the priorities and objectives of the state policy in this area.

According to the document, the government bodies will have to maintain library services free of charge, guarantee benefits for children, students, disabled persons, pensioners and low-income groups for their visits to museums, theaters and cinemas. A special attention is attributed to civil rights to a free access to cultural life and artistic education. Among the most urgent problems is everything related to copyright and choice of creative resources for creating a work.

The law should solve the issue of piracy which is already urgent for modernized libraries. The Russian State Library hopes that the approval of this bill will guarantee the protection of copyright. 

“Technically we can send any document from our library to any point of our planet via Internet. We have all technical possibilities for that and practically it is free. The only thing needed at this stage is the permission of the author”, - explains the President of the Russian State Library, Victor Fedorov.

The bill defining culture as a social and economic resource for the state development will be considered by the State Duma deputies of the next convocation. Its developers note again: the document need a detailed discussion.