Harry Potter films will no longer be available for legal viewing in Russia from February 1.
“The license rights for this specific content, the films of the Harry Potter universe, expire as scheduled on January 31,” the company said in a statement.
Earlier in the Russian online cinema “Kinopoisk” there were reports that the films of the “Harry Potter” and “Fantastic Beasts” franchises are available until January 31.
“Harry Potter” and “Fantastic Beasts” franchises on “Kinopoisk” are presented by our partner service Amediateka. We, like other online cinemas working with Amediateka, provide access to the content provided by the service,” the online cinema said.
As reported, last April the Russian electronic book services “LitRes” and MyBook reported that the series of books by the British writer Joan Rowling about Harry Potter will become unavailable to users in Russia by the decision of the copyright owner.
At the same time, Joan Rowling allowed free online access to free digital books about Harry Potter in Ukrainian.
It will be recalled that after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine by Disney, Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures announced their refusal to release their new films in Russia. A similar decision was made by Paramount and Universal studios after them.
Later, it became known that the film premieres of these companies will not appear on Russian streaming services. In the summer, old films and series of foreign production began to disappear from the libraries of Russian online cinemas. For example, the TV series “Friends”, the films “1+1”, “Interstellar”, “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Mask” disappeared on “Kinopoisk”.
