Russia bans music portal Last.fm over ‘cop-killer’ song

Russian censors have banned the popular online music portal Last.fm for offering a song called "Kill a Cop!" by the Russian band Psyche. Officials first outlawed the song almost five years ago, when a Moscow court placed the tune on the government's list of illegal extremist materials.

Last summer, in 2014, state censors first started making a serious effort to ban online resources that hosted copies of "Kill a Cop!" Since September 24, 2014, when a court in Kirov again instructed officials to ban websites hosting the song, Roskomnadzor, the Kremlin's media watchdog agency, has blocked several online resources, including the music portal Muzofon.com. 

According to Anti-zapret.info, which logs all websites banned in Russia, the URL "www.last.fm/ru/music/Психея/_/Убей+мента" was added to the state's official registry of banned websites on August 27. According to the news agency Interfax, Russian Internet service providers are not able to block just this one song on Last.fm and must block the entire portal.

Psyche's song, "Kill a Cop!" features the following refrain: "Beat me, trample me, cut me to pieces—I've gone completely insane. The situation is getting out of control, and I hope it's worth it. Kill a cop! (How much is your freedom worth, anyway?)" 

Though Last.fm has been blocked in Russia, YouTube still hosts roughly 1,740 copies of Psyche's song, including recordings from many live performances.