The offices of music publisher Gem and Top7 Company were searched

Representatives of law-enforcement agencies carried out operative search operations in the offices of Publishing House Jam LLC and Top7 Company LLC. This was reported by a source of Izvestiya on December 20.

Both legal entities are located at the same address and are related to the director of the music publishing house "Gem" Andrey Cherkasov.

According to preliminary data of the source, the police were looking for evidence in a case of self-dealing, associated with the preparation of fictitious documents confirming the rights to phonograms of the group "Hands Up!". It is reported that operatives caught Cherkasov's wife Yulia Paliychuk, in whose name is registered LLC "Company Top7".

Earlier, on December 11, the lead singer of the group "Hands Up!" Sergei Zhukov wrote an appeal to the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia Alexander Bastrykin and Chairman of the Supreme Court Irina Podnosova with a request for assistance in the case of copyright protection for the songs of the group "Hands Up!".

Zhukov noted that LLC "Company Top7" claims to be the right holder of audiovisual works and other results of intellectual activity from the repertoire of the group "Hands Up!" and demands to pay her as the right holder. According to the musician, Cherkasov has never had anything to do with the recordings of the group's hits. He has only a "strange document on the transfer of rights to phonograms," signed by the ex-producer of the group Andrei Malikov in 2006.

Before that, on July 7, Zhukov told Izvestia that he had appealed to the Arbitration Court of Moscow over the rights to several hits of "Hands Up!". Then there was information about the filing of a statement of claim by the performer against LLC "Publishing House Jam". Zhukov emphasized that it is impossible to take away the copyrights from him, as he is the author of the compositions.