Broadcasting in the Soviet Union news and television news was provided almost entirely by the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union, commonly known as TASS until 1991. Under the rule of Emperor Nikolai II, the first broadcasting system began in 1904, and evolved into TASS in 1925. TASS still exists today, transformed into the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (ITAR-TASS). It occupies a Joseph Stalin-era building in Moscow, characterised by a bas-relief sculpture above the main entrance. However, much like its counterparts in cinema and the press, it has suffered since the break-up of Soviet Union. ITAR now broadcasts domestic news, while TASS reports the
Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc. all matters regarding copyright, including the determination of ownership. This ruling quashed the decision of a lower court, which had decided that in a lawsuit between a reporter-cameraman of a US media company operating in France, the US law applied in determining ownership of the footage. Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc. Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc., 153 F.3d 82 (2d Cir. 1998), was a copyright case about the Russian language weekly "Russian Kurier" in New York City that had copied and published various materials from Russian newspapers and news agency reports of Itar-TASS. The