A draft law being discussed in the State Duma would make mobile operators pay every time their clients download copyrighted material.

The tax would amount to 2 percent of the revenue from the internet services they provide.

The money would be distributed among Russian copyright holders. It is still not clear if foreign authors would also be paid.

Providers already have to pay for copyrighted material downloaded legally from their websites. The new law would extend this to any site accessed with their services – so the mobile operators may pay even twice.

Still, experts say it is customers who will be made to carry the extra costs.

Recently, the State Duma passed a law levying import duties against companies that bring to the country anything that can record audio or video files – computers, cameras, phones, portable memory devices and even recordable CDs. The regulation, however, still cannot used as the organization to collect the royalties has not yet been chosen.