Prime is one of the primary victims of large-scale copyright infringement in the Russian Federation.

Since 2022, following the withdrawal of U.S. motion picture studios from the Russian market, the majority of movie theaters have deliberately chosen not to comply with intellectual property laws and the rights of copyright holders. These theaters have been publicly exhibiting pirated copies of motion pictures without obtaining licenses or paying any royalties to rights holders.

In addition to films produced by traditional movie studios, Russian movie theaters have also unlawfully exhibited feature-length films originating from streaming platforms, including Prime.

Reports documenting certain instances of these illegal theatrical exhibitions are available in the Movies section.

However, the most significant and systematic harm to Prime has been caused by the VKVideo application, which is freely available for download in the App Store and Google Play.

This application provides access to an extensive library of Prime content — including films, series, and catalog titles — without authorization and free of charge.

A detailed investigation of the VKVideo application is available at the following link.

The application is technically configured to conceal pirated content when installed and accessed from the United States. However, when a user configures a VPN connection to Russia, pirated content — including Prime titles — becomes fully accessible.

Additionally, when VPN settings are switched to jurisdictions such as Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Ukraine, the same pirated content remains available. Given that a substantial portion of the population in these countries is Russian-speaking, unauthorized access to Prime content through this application is likely to be widespread.