TASS (, "Soobshchyeniye TASS"). TASS included affiliated news agencies in all 14 Soviet republics in addition to Russia: RATAU (Ukrainian SSR, now Ukrinform), BelTA (Byelorussian SSR), ETA (Estonian SSR), Latinform (Latvian SSR, now LETA), ELTA (Lithuanian SSR), ATEM (Moldavian SSR, now Moldpres), Armenpress (Armenian SSR), Gruzinform (Georgian SSR), Azerinform (Azerbaijan SSR, now AZERTAC), UzTAG (Uzbek SSR, now UzA), KazTAG (Kazakh SSR, now Kazinform), KyrTAG (Kyrgyz SSR, now Kabar), Turkmeninform (Turkmen SSR, now TDH) and TajikTA (Tajik SSR, now Khovar). Over the history other affiliates existed, e.g. KarelfinTAG for the Karelo-Finnish SSR. TASS news and photos were received by 4,000 Soviet newspapers,
Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc. was claimed applied ("lex loci delicti"). Itar-TASS, several Russian newspapers, and a Russian association of professional journalists (the Union of Journalists of Russia, in Russian: Союз журналистов России) sued "Russian Kurier", its owner, and its printing company for copyright infringement in 1995 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The court issued a preliminary injunction against the defendant. This preliminary injunction applied to all copied articles for which the plaintiffs had registered copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office or that were published after March 13, 1995, the date Russia signed the Berne Convention. The