Russian Music Site Offering Legal Songs By The MB

An anonymous reader writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting on a Russian Music site that is offering legal digital music by the MB. The site apparently has a license from the Russian Music authorities to legally distribute songs for a fraction of the price of what is being offered by iTunes and others. The report from SMH is here. Amazingly, the site offers files in any format and encoding you choose and rips it on the fly. Notifications by email follow when the songs are ready for download. Sounds a little to good to be true :)"

Comments

Dunno why no link

[lordkuri]

click me

Re:Dunno why no link

[guiscard]

Maybe the RIAA submitted the story to Slashdot to bring down the server?

Re:Dunno why no link

[TedCheshireAcad]

Their HTTP 200 error message owns, though. Instead of telling you to 'try again later' its like 'please refresh! we love getting out ass pounded into the floor!'

Re:Dunno why no link

[ahaning]

Wayback Machine / Karma-Whoring link.

Allofmp3.com

[p0ppe]

http://www.allofmp3.com/

Been using their services for half a year now without any problems. They're licenced with the Russian equivalent of the RIAA, so I don't see where the problem is.

This is a great example of the free market combined with the internet. I'm able to buy goods and services from wherever it suits me.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

If you import legally purchased marijuana you will be in violation of drug possession laws. But can you name a law you would violate when importing a legally purchased piece of music? Private individuals import lots of music all the time with no legal problems.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[Urkki]

*RIA* aren't bad in principle, quite the contrary. If they get too much power and abuse it (and let's face it, too much power always leads to abuse), then that can be bad. But ideally they're representing artists rights, put to that position by artists, just as good or bad as for example EFF can be. It's just that money tends to corrupt everything.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[Rico_za]

This is a great example of the free market combined with the internet. I'm able to buy goods and services from wherever it suits me.

That's exactly the same argument that can be used for outsourcing IT jobs. You can't have it both ways people! You can't have your cheap consumer economy in the US, and still want your jobs protected. Why not complain about the poor music industry jobs that are being "outsourced" to Russia?

Re:Allofmp3.com

[s0meguy]

Not a problem - they take Paypal.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[etymxris]

I don't complain of either personally. Outsourcing is fine for both consumers and businesses in my book.

As has been said many times before, not all of slashdot speaks with one voice. When you see those topics with 800-2000 comments, it's because there is significant disagreement. If everyone agreed, there wouldn't be much to say.

You are right that there can be a certain hypocricy in saying that consumers should be able to get cheap wares from Russian markets, yet that our jobs should not be outsourced there. However, the charitable thing to do is to assume that no one holds both those positions until seeing someone that does. What makes you think otherwise?

Re:Allofmp3.com

[marc_gerges]

The issue nowadays is just the other way around.

A company can move, source, produce and sell pretty much wherever it wants. However, as a consumer my possibilities to buy goods and services where I see fit is severely hampered.

Ever tried to buy something from an Amazon affiliate not in your part of the world? Heck, I'm in Luxembourg, and there's many articles within amazon.de that they refuse to ship to anywhere but Germany.

A Toyota Prius is 20000 USD in the US, and 25000 EUR over here. Can I import one from the US? Sure. Will Toyota US sell me one? Sure not.

Of course, I could jump through hoops and get my stuff (I sometimes do). But we're far away from having consumers being able to use globalization to his advantage...

Re:Allofmp3.com

[Mattsson]

Yes, some jobs are created in russia instead of the US in the music-sales sector and the IT-sector.
But most of the jobs related to the song that's being downloaded have little or nothing to do with where in the world the song is being sold.
This is no different than buying a record while on vacation, buying a record from another country over the net or buying something from iTunes while not being a US citizen.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[Fulcrum of Evil]

If they get too much power and abuse it (and let's face it, too much power always leads to abuse), then that can be bad. But ideally they're representing artists rights, put to that position by artists, just as good or bad as for example EFF can be.

On this planet, the RIAA does have too much power, and they do abuse it, and they don't really represent artists - they represent the labels, which just want to make money. If they could do it without artists, they would.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[theLOUDroom]

That's exactly the same argument that can be used for outsourcing IT jobs. You can't have it both ways people! You can't have your cheap consumer economy in the US, and still want your jobs protected. Why not complain about the poor music industry jobs that are being "outsourced" to Russia?

NO, this is not like outsourcing.
What this is doing is using the industry's geographical price discrimitation against them.

They might charge $10 for a widget in the US and only $4 in Cambodia, so what's happening here it that the same goods are still being purchased from the same company, it's just the geographic price discrimination is being avoided.

Incidentally price controls like this are illegal in the US, it's just that nobody exists to deal with them on an internaional level. Thus, you can ship a DVD that won't play in Korea, but not one which won't play in Kentucky.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[dasmegabyte]

And who need to do something with all that money. Do you think they're outsourcing money management or lawyers? Are they relying on cheap Asian labor to build their fast cars and gigantic bungalows?

Nearly every successful person I know has gotten there by knowing people with money and selling things to them. One guy I know quit GE and started his own company doing exactly what he did at GE, hired his former co-workers, and outsourced himself to GE for more money (twice as much, but GE loved it since they weren't "in that field," despite dropping several mil a year into it).

While it's true that trickle down economics don't work, pumping water from upstream generally does.

Anyhow, the Grandfather's assertion that the average wage in the US will be no higher than the average wage in urban China is true, for the most part, but only because the average wage in urban China will go up at the same time ours goes down. That's one easy way to acheive global equality.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[akadruid]

In continental Europe and the USA, the idea of importing a car to save money is a seen as an oddity. In the UK, entire industries are built around the simple fact that it is cheaper to re-import vehicles constructed in UK from countries such as the Netherlands. As an illustration, see Jamjar, the UK's largest independent car retailer, selling UK spec models sourced from Europe.

This is nothing to do with minor exchange rate differences either. Standard retail prices of cars are regularly 20-60% higher in the UK.

As geograpical price-fixing goes, 'Ripoff Britain' has USA and continental Europe beaten hands-down.

Hmmmm...

[elmegil]

I dunno, having "Russia" and "legal" in the same sentence leaves me a bit ... skeptical.

Besides, in post-Soviet Russia, the songs MegaByte You!

Er....

Obviously not rip...

[hanssprudel]

It doesn't rip it on the fly, it encodes it on the fly. Big difference (thousands of CD-ROMs???)

More importantly, has anybody tried this? I found it many months ago, but I am loath to send my credit card data to a semi-shady Russian site, and I am worried that credit card records could be used to go after people who used the site when it (inevitably) gets shut down eventually. What do people think?

Re:Obviously not rip...

[Hakubi_Washu]

Why not put PayPal inbetween? That way you can't be charged... (I use PayPal exclusively, because I don't have a creditcard, they're not that common over here in germany :-)

Re:Obviously not rip...

[drudd]

My wife and I have used it for several months now, and have been very happy (although lately the servers seem to be overloaded too often).

The funny thing is, after we put the first amount on our credit card, Citibank called up to make sure that the charge was legit. Then when we put more money on a few months later, they called again! I guess Citibank just can't believe people might purchase stuff from a Russian company :)

Doug

Re:Obviously not rip...

[Ubergrendle]

Actually, if my credit card was ripped off, I would assume that downloading online music would be a preferred activity. Why use my credit card to buy CDs from the HMV at the mall when I can go to a website and download 10x the amount? Also, i might get ~physically~ caught at a mall.

I'm sure Citibank isn't skeptical of the company itself per se, more that you've changed your buying habits to purchase something internationally.

BTW, this can be bad from a precedent setting perspective. Citibank will (eventually) adjust its fraud-detection settings for your account, so the next time a questionable internet-based Russian purchase happens it might not trigger a flag.

Re:Obviously not rip...

[fingerfucker]

Use the "one-time disposable credit card number generation" service provided by your bank. Citi has it, MBNA has it, Discover has it, AmEx has it, almost everyone these days has it.

The way it works, you log in, specify the maximum amount to charge and set your own expiration date per your wish. A credit card number from a static pool is given to you and associated with the amount and your billing information for the period of time until expiration. After that, the number is useless. The number also becomes useless once you use it to charge up to the amount that you specified (i.e. exhaust your "quota" on that number). They typically even generate the CVV code for you, should you ever need it, so it works pretty well.

Bandwidth testing

[tomknight]

And here's where we do them the service of testing their bandwidth ;-)

Tom.

The price is right

[NSash]

$5 for 500 megabytes. Now this is more like it.

Re:The price is right

[Anonymous Coward]

yes but I encode at 2048kbps.

We knew it was going to come down to this...

[ILL Robinson]

...music has now become shovelware!

seems legal

[VC]

Considering that the RIAA sued weblisten for RE-distributing allofmp3.com's content, but didnt sue them, this is probably legal..

Re:seems legal

[golgotha007]

the RIAA and MPAA has zero jurisdiction here in Russia. why do you think piracy is as bad here as in the Asian countries? i would not be surprised if allofmp3.com license is made up and bogus, as it is not needed.

every street corner has CD shops loaded with the latest games, apps and music.

they also package MP3 CD's which is loaded with albums, lyrics and CD art. each CD is 65 roubles, which is about $2

very strange to see this story; i am currently working on getting credit card functionality for my mp3 distribution engine. my site is at least a month before seeing production, but the site will be 100 percent in english, has a beyond amazing collection (just under a terrabyte) and offers each song for a penny.

the thing slowing me down is getting a merchant account here in Russia that will allow me to do credit card transfers.

Shady spelling

[Zagar]

Dear users!
We proud to announce a new encoding function called Online Encoding Exclusive, which is a part of the "Online Encoding" service and became available at AllOFMP3.com in the test mode. Online Encoding Exclusive enables you to:

1. Encode music with LossLess encoding algorithms (Monkey's Audio, FLAC and OptimFrog) using the data of original audio CD as a source.
2. Encode music with our usual encoders (MP3, Ogg, etc.) using the data of original audio CD as a source.

Albums, that available for ordering through Online Encoding Exclusive service are marked with a special label . The amount of such albums will grow from day to day. We hope that you'll enjoy our new service.

More details about Online Encoding Exclusive service.

AllOFMP3.com team.

Not legal

[Simon Lyngshede]

allofmp3.com isn't legal, it migth be in Russia, but that doesn't mean that people outside russia can buy from them legally. If they wish to tell to say Denmark, they must have an agreement with KODA (Danish RIAA), THEY DON'T. Same deal as with Spanish weblisten, legal in Spain, not outside.

It might be a nice service, but I won't recommend using it. If they do not have a deal with the RIAA equivalent in what ever country you're in, it is a waste of money.

Don't trust sites that sell music that doesn't have an agreement with a record label or the artists.

Re:Not legal

[Cred]

I'm no expert on the matter but if I buy a CD from Russia that's $15 cheaper than in my country, do I have to pay again to the local RIAA just because I got it cheaper? Does it make the record illegal if I got it cheaper from Russia? No. If I buy legal online music from Russia instead say.. iTunes, does it make the songs illegal? I doubt. Why would it be? The only reason what I really can come up is RIAA way of thinking "it's never too expensive".

Re:Not legal

[SubtleNuance]

IANAL:

But the Berne Convention (and others) covers copyright between nations (ie: protect ours this, that, and the other-way and we'll protect yours the same). If I buy from Russia -- and its legal in russia -- than I can import it into my own country. Nothing is the matter.

Here is the real problem: Copyright is an outdated and broken concept, with all manner of issues involved now that physical scarcity of music has ended. Outside of oppressive cabals rigging the market (Koda/RIAA etc), how do you expect this all to work? It costs nothing to move $intellectual-property, so geography is irrelevant. It costs nothing to manufacture (cp mysong.wav yoursong.wav;wget http://allmusicisfree.com/yoursong.wav).

This hodge-podge of nonsense is collapsing under its own stupidity... and I say good. Its high time The People got to enjoy the benefits of our technological advances.

Re:Not legal

[misterpies]

This might be what the RIAA and equivalents want you to think, but it's not the law. The reason is the "first sale" doctrine of copyright law. Once a song has been legally marketed & sold, then the copyright owner loses most rights over resale/reimportation. E.g. If you go to a Russian music store and buy a bunch of cheap (legal) CDs, then you don't need the RIAA's permission to bring those CDs back into the US. The copyright in that CD, at least as far as the right to profit from its sale, has been exhausted. Similarly, if you go to Russia and legally download a lot of songs to your laptop from a Russian website, you can bring those songs back to the US.

Now the difference here is that you're actually buying the songs on a Russian website without leaving the US. But legally, that doesn't really matter - it's pretty clear that for long-distance transactions, the transaction takes place at the point where it is received, not where it is sent. E.g. if you order something by phone or fax, the transaction takes place where the call/fax is received. There seems to be no reason why this should be different on the internet though I can't pretend to have checked if there are any cases on it.

Of course, it's pretty clear what will happen. All the US record labels will change their licensing deals in Russia to prevent services like these being offered - i.e. it will be a breach of allofmp3.com's license for them to sell songs outside to people based outside Russia. In other words, exactly the same deal iTunes reached with the record labels that stops them selling songs outside the US. So better get your MP3s from Russia while you still can

Re:Not legal

[guiscard]

And from this Guardian article:

The problem is that, according to the recording industry, these sites are breaking the law. As Alan Dixon, general counsel of the London-based International Federation of the Phonograph Industry, says of Weblisten: "They have not less than six lawsuits pending against them, and two criminal proceedings. They are taking advantage of the way the Spanish legal system moves incredibly slowly: they have never been declared as legitimately distributing the plaintiff's recording."

The issue is that recorded music has three sets of rights to be argued over. The songwriter has the copyright to the song, the artist his own rights in it, and the record label and producers a third set. While these Russian and Spanish sites may be paying the songwriters, via a collection agency, they are acting without the permission of the other copyright holders.

The Russian sites claim that, under Russian law, foreign record labels releasing music in Russia give up their rights to prevent this. Not so, says Dixon. Such Soviet-era rules were rescinded under "article 47 paragraph 2 of the Russian Copyright Code" years ago. Downloading from such sites would be infringing both British and Russian copyright law, he says.

Re:Not legal

[cpt kangarooski]

This might be what the RIAA and equivalents want you to think, but it's not the law.

As it happens, in the US it is indeed the law.

Once a song has been legally marketed & sold, then the copyright owner loses most rights over resale/reimportation.

That's not quite right, actually.

First sale deals with specific copies. The copies need to have been made in a manner that would be legal if they were made in the US, regardless of the legality under foreign law.

So if Perry Como makes a punk rock record and sells it, anyone can then turn around and resell it. If he sold it in the UK, then you can import it into the US, no problem.

However, if you copy it and get a second record, assuming the copying isn't legal (per 17 USC 107 or 1008 or whatever) then you CAN'T resell the second record under the first sale provision (109).

Likewise, if Perry sold his rights in the UK to his close friend Sid Vicious, and Sid was the one making copies in the UK, you couldn't -- as a matter of first sale -- import those copies into the US. There is a good reason for that.

Imagine that there was a small country that bordered the US and could easily ship stuff here. We'll call it Moosylvania. Further, imagine that Moosylvania has no copyright laws at all. This means it's legal for the locals to copy anything they want. If they could freely export it to the US, they'd just do an end run around our copyright laws, and everyone would buy cheap, unauthorized Moosylvanian copies, basically leaving the US copyright holders screwed.

So, for first sale to apply, the copyright holder who made the copy has to be the US copyright holder. If that's not so, even though the copy was made legally over there, it won't qualify, because it would not have been made legally if it had been made over here.

Some degree of importation despite first sale is still allowed under 602. But importation is very clearly the bringing of things from one country into another country. It is, you'll agree, NOT the same as making new things in a country that are based on those in another country. For example, I could import a Scottish castle, but that would involve taking it apart brick by brick, mailing the bricks here, and putting it back together again. If I built an exact replica, and the original is still in Scotland, then I didn't import it, I reproduced it.

When you download from this site, there is a master copy in Russia. At the end of the process, there is a master copy in Russia AND a copy on your hard drive. That's two copies, and that already indicates that it's not an import. And the copyright holder has the exclusive right to reproduce his work in the US per 106.

So it's not legal for Americans to use this site here. Ironically, it probably would be legal to use the site in Russia, provided that the provisions of 602 were complied with (as noted, first sale would likely not apply) when you brought the copies back in, but I expect few /.ers are going to be doing that.

Re:Not legal

[sir_cello]

Nice rant, but you don't know what you are talking about.

(a) the Berne Convention does provide for national treatment, but typically the owner of the copyright is the first marketer _in the respective territory_, which means that although the song Russia is technically the same as the copy original provided from the parent company in the US, it is actually (in legal terms) an entirely different one because two separate legal personalities in the US and Russia own the copyright in the respective songs: so the US owner cannot ligitate against someone who copies the Russian version (capice?), nor can the Russian owner litigate against someone who copies the US version. Remember that in the case of copyright infringement, you have to _prove_ an act of copying, and thus a _chain of copies_ leading back to the original version that was infringed.

The Berne Convention does offer a "thirty-day" window in which if you publish in several countries during that period, then the owner of the work _is_ the single owner. This means that if the US owner had also published in Russia within 30 days of the release of the song, then they would own the copyright in the work, and could litigate against the Russian copyists.

(b) Copyright is not outdated: firstly, it costs time, effort and money to make these musical works: so the creators deserve to own rights in those works. This fundamental concept is never going to change. You say "it costs nothing to manufacture" - umm, how do you account for the costs of studios, equipment, people's time and effort, etc ? Sure it costs nothing to make _a copy_ of the first original copy of the work recorded in the studio, but it still costs a lot to make that first copy.

Re:Not legal

[laird]

"I'm no expert on the matter but if I buy a CD from Russia that's $15 cheaper than in my country, do I have to pay again to the local RIAA just because I got it cheaper? ... If I buy legal online music from Russia instead say.. iTunes, does it make the songs illegal?"

It's not a matter of pricing being lower in Russia; the site is pretty obviously illegal. Many of the artists whose work is being sold (e.g. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin) have never agreed to have their work sold digitally, which is why you can't find their music on any legitimate music download service. And of course, if they're selling music for a few cents a track, they're not paying the artists and composers for the recordings.

Even if it were legal in Russia (which it clearly isn't) they clearly wouldn't have the right to sell that music anywhere else, since the companies that have the Russian rights to the music aren't the same as the companies that have the US rights, and those rights are exclusive. So even if the Russian company decided to sell music for almost nothing, they couldn't sell it to US customers, etc. This legal issue is why iTunes only sells to US customers, etc. -- to do things legally, you have to negotiate the rights to sell the music country by country.

Re:Not legal

[10101001 10101001]

However, if you copy it and get a second record, assuming the copying isn't legal (per 17 USC 107 or 1008 or whatever) then you CAN'T resell the second record under the first sale provision (109).

Problem one, you assume the copying isn't legal. The fact is, there's the equivalent of two copying going on. Labels are selling music to allofmp3 and allofmp3 is selling songs to you. The slight difference is more than likely allofmp3 isn't actually getting source copies from the label each time but has some contract. So, allofmp3 has to follow its contract for which it might need for you to sign a contract to remove itself from liability for your illegal actions. And then the legality is placed squarely on the user.

Likewise, if Perry sold his rights in the UK to his close friend Sid Vicious, and Sid was the one making copies in the UK, you couldn't -- as a matter of first sale -- import those copies into the US. There is a good reason for that.

If Perry sells his rights in the UK to Sid, then you can obviously import any copies Sid makes for sale because they're copyrighted. Or do you think the RIAA can't sell US music in the UK because it got hold of the copyright for songs from the authors?

Imagine that there was a small country that bordered the US and could easily ship stuff here. We'll call it Moosylvania. Further, imagine that Moosylvania has no copyright laws at all. This means it's legal for the locals to copy anything they want. If they could freely export it to the US, they'd just do an end run around our copyright laws, and everyone would buy cheap, unauthorized Moosylvanian copies, basically leaving the US copyright holders screwed.

Except Russia has copyright law. And Russia and the US have almost certaintly set up a treaty to deal with copyright law (the whole point of the Berne convention and its cousins, btw, was to unify copyright law enough so that copyright could extend around the globe..and that means importing copyrighted works from Russia should be perfectly legal in itself).

So, for first sale to apply, the copyright holder who made the copy has to be the US copyright holder. If that's not so, even though the copy was made legally over there, it won't qualify, because it would not have been made legally if it had been made over here.

That really doesn't make sense. Of course, it's a good question on whether it's even possible for someone in the US to hand over their copyright in just one country. And if it *was* possible, then it obviously means you can import the song because it's still under copyright (just not a local one). If copyright can extend from the US to the UK, I'm not sure why it can't extend back again.

When you download from this site, there is a master copy in Russia. At the end of the process, there is a master copy in Russia AND a copy on your hard drive. That's two copies, and that already indicates that it's not an import. And the copyright holder has the exclusive right to reproduce his work in the US per 106.

Then how can iTunes do it? Through a contract, of course. And the contract involves making a copy for sale. That copy for sale is paid for before being resold to the consumer. If that weren't true, iTunes wouldn't be paying another company. Or are you saying the contract isn't a valid way of reproducing a work? If that's true, then I hope you don't believe an even less strong legal item called a license (like GPL or the BSD variety) to redistribute works.

Re:Seems legit on the surface.

[NSash]

The website is in English.

you bastards

[jaxon6]

Oh you rat bastards. I thought I had a good thing going. I was getting all the music I wanted for cheap, and the site was under the radar enough not to upset the sue-happy music bizfolk. Now my speeds are going to be shot, the company is going to be closed, and I'll have to go back to buying my four cds a year. So, once again slashdot screws me. To that I say fuck you very much.

Oh ya, I almost forgot. I found out about them from a slasdot post of somebodys. So, uhh, forget what I just said.

Sounds a little to good to be true :) ..Why?

[evil_roy]

If you think that then you must live in some authoritarian state like ....

Who'd have thought it... Russia..the home of the brave and the free.

Re:Seems legit on the surface.

[lovemayo]

Well, I could try... I know the "russian" up in the left corner means "russian" and the "english" next to it means "english"...

Nothing new here...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using another service from Russia, MP3 Search Club with great success for some time now. Frankly, I'm surprised this qualifies as news. This service, too, is liscenced by the "Russian RIAA". As a Canadian, I find this site an invaluable compliment to my right to make personal copies of music to share with others. ;-P Given, though, that this other site lets you encode in your favorite format, I'll probably soon switch over to them.

Who are "The MB"

[nutcracker666]

I am afraid I am too old to have heard of "The MB" so why would I want their music ? Are they one of those new-fangled rap / hip-hop groups ? All I can think of is The Moody Blues.

Reason this is legal...

[GraZZ]

They Legal Info page on allofmp3.com has changed since I first started using the site (great service, they're definately NOT stealing credit card info), but the gist of their old legal page is that they were paying license fees as if they were broadcasting their music over radio; hence the license fee per song for them is probably less than a penny.

The best part about the site? After getting your account upgraded, you are able to rip and upload music to them and recieve DOUBLE your size credit in downloads :)

Re:Reason this is legal...

[nattt]

And how is that different from buying a CD in a store where all the money goes to the store and the RIAA, and the artist doesn't see any of it?

The fact is that if it costs a radio station a small fraction of a cent per listener per song, why does the licence component of a CD that I'm going to listen to $1?? It's one price for the radio (cheap) and another for the consumer(gets screwed)

The Russian Mobsic Industry

[53cur!ty]

It's good to see the Russian Mob...I mean Music Industry meeting the needs of the consumers!

Two observations:

1st - Do any of you see the hypocrisy in buying from the Russian site? Are you the same people complaining about the outsourcing of American jobs/economy?

2nd - Has it occurred to anyone that the music industry is now mob run? Look at the tactics they employ compared to past mob practices. And no the mob doesn't kill everyone since then they don't pay, only when they need to make an example or you steal directly from them. However, the recent pay or we'll sue definitely follow their intimidation tactics. The mob goes where the money is; right now, that's media (music and movies).

Just my two-cents, think about it!

Let us streamline your world

Re:Credit Card?

[Gryffin]

More importantly, has anybody tried this?

A lot of people, apparently. Including me. I've been very happy with it.

I am loath to send my credit card data to a semi-shady Russian site

I don't think they even accept credit cards directly; at least, I don't recall seeing that option when I signed up.

I signed up using PayPal. That's one reason I took the plunge: a (more or less) reputable American intermediary for the financial end. I have a balance, that's deducted from for each download. When it's near empty, I go to PayPal and fill 'er up again. It's pretty painless.

Re:One of these days, Alice

[tbone1]

Umm, how do they sell stuff on the internet without charging money?

They'll make it up in volume.

RIAA != ASCAP

[Peter Desnoyers]

AllofMP3 has a license from the artists' association in Russia, not the record labels - i.e. the ASCAP equivalent, not the RIAA equivalent. Under Russian law this is sufficient, according to the website. (I'd give a link, but the server is slashdotted at the moment...)

Well, it is too good to be true

[cpt kangarooski]

It's probably great for Russians. But for Americans at least, the site is illegal.

Our laws prohibit most unauthorized distribution and reproduction of copyrighted works in the US per 17 USC 106. The party that can authorize it is the US copyright holder -- this is prone to be a different entity than rights holders abroad.

While some degree of importation is allowed per 602 and 109, this doesn't qualify. A copy isn't merely being brought into the country, but rather due to the way computers work (see the infamous MAI v. Peak case, which while wrong is commonly relied upon), a new copy is being made on the downloader's end that did not originate in Russia, and thus wasn't imported as 602 requires. (Though what it was copied _from_ did -- it's the difference betweeen a CD that can be brought from place to place, and making a tape of what you hear on the phone)

Even the ability to legally import unauthorizedly is somewhat limited; the idea is that if we have copyright laws domestically, to allow people to do an end run around it by operating in a country with less or no copyright, then importing works here en masse would result in things being, well, fucked up, basically. This site basically demonstrates how such a thing might happen.

The Russians are probably fine -- if they're careful, RIAA won't be able to shut them down. OTOH, Americans using the service could get into significant trouble if they're caught.

All that having been said, I'd like to see the law changed to better suit the desires of the public, but for now there are problems for this.

Re:Well, it is too good to be true

[paulhar]

Why is this any different to physically flying to Russia, buying a CD off the shelf for a much lower price than you pay in the US, then flying back with it?

I.e. if you are legally buying something in another country (as allofmp3 claim) and you are shipping it to your computer (via an internet, just as software etc is distributed), then how can this suddenly become magically illegal?

Re:Well, it is too good to be true

[cpt kangarooski]

Why is this any different to physically flying to Russia, buying a CD off the shelf for a much lower price than you pay in the US, then flying back with it?

Because that involves a copy made (legally, we assume) in Russia. The selfsame copy is then brought here. When you listen to it, you're listening to a copy of foreign origin.

This involves a copy made HERE, itself based on a copy in Russia. When you download something, the bits on the server aren't magically sent to you -- instead a new copy is made. Since, in the end, there is a copy on your computer, and a copy on their computer, it is pretty obvious that this involved an act of copying, not an act of importation (where only one copy exists, and it's moved physically).

Do you see the difference?

Re:Well, it is too good to be true

[Quaryon]

To be pedantic, the Russian site creates a copy specifically for you - once you've finished downloading it gets deleted - that might make a difference, not sure. This happens because the file you download is encoded specifically for you, with your own desired LAME (or whatever) parameters.

Q.

VERY LEGAL.

[scum-e-bag]

allofmp3.com isn't legal, it migth be in Russia, but that doesn't mean that people outside russia can buy from them legally.

If you live in Australia, where the article is written, then it is legal The parallel importing of music is legal in Australia. The parallel importing of music helps keep the price down and is evidence of a free market economy working well, unlike the USA with the BSA and MPAA and RIAA and other IP outfits where these gestapo like organisations control the free flow of information.

We can't see any legal or moral objection to using the site. We're using the material for private use, there is no restriction in this country on the parallel importing of recorded music and none of the artists seem to have been deprived of their rights.

Re:VERY LEGAL.

[Politburo]

You're not looking at the argument correctly.

The internet is threatening to destroy the viability of creating entertainment because people like you seem to think that just because it's easy to do something that it should be legal too.

No. Most people in this thread are saying it should be legal due to the way copyright law and international trade is setup. If these songs are legally obtained and distributed under Russian law, then no law is broken if they are imported into the USA or other countries. It doesn't matter if that's done over the Internet, or if I walk to Russia during the next ice age.

Word. I'm also pissed off at the FDA for preventing the free flow of untested drugs, and the FBI for restricting the free flow of raw, uncut heroin. And I'm not a big fan of the "State Police" slowing down the free flow of my neighbour's high deifnition TV into my basement.

You appear to be sarcastic here, but many people consider these legitimate beefs with the government (although I don't quite understand what the last one is supposed to be.. your neighbors TV turned up too loud?). The idea that the government can regulate what we put in our bodies is appalling to many, including myself.

While legal in Russia

[Daath]

While legal in Russia, it may not be legal in YOUR country to use their services.
Just a thing to bear in mind, if you want to keep a clean path.

What makes you think . . .

[Idou]

the poster is against outsourcing? Slashdot is a diverse group of individuals voicing their diverse opinions, which all conflict. I am tired of individuals saying "gotcha" when two completely SEPARATE individuals voice CONFLICTING opinions. Btw, if ALL prices (not just wages) were to drop at the same rate, then, yes, nobody would be complaining about outsourcing. The problem is that there are market inefficiencies that are keeping some prices the same while others go down.

If something seems too good to be true..

[mpk]

..then it probably is, and that's why I treat these claims with a hefty degree of scepticism. Let's look at a few points:

If they claim they're legal because "we're licensed as if we were broadcasting the material", then as far as I understand you have no right to make or keep a recording of anything they might broadcast. Broadcasting is "we broadcast it and you listen", and there's no automatic right to tape records off the radio.

It's highly possible that the reason they haven't been closed down is that taking legal action against shady Russian entities is extremely difficult at the best of times.

If they're interested in people uploading stuff *to* them in exchange for download rights, then the legitimacy of their source material seems doubtful.

Ultimately, applying Occam's razor to this story makes me wonder that if it's so spotlessly legal, why isn't everyone setting up stores like this on Russian territory?

Anyway, something here smells sufficiently fishy for me to be extremely sceptical of the wisdom of giving them money.

Record Company Pays YOU

[handy_vandal]

You knew that one of these days record companies would "get it" and find a way to sell their wares over the internet. Now I await them finding a way to do it without charging money.

Better yet, the record company should pay YOU (yes, in Soviet Russia, etc. etc.) to listen.

Example:

You download the latest hit from Britney Spears. (I'll repeat: "you download", not me.)

About halfway through the song, there's an ad for Pepsi ... followed by the rest of the song.

Pepsi pays you a nickel (or whatever) for actually listening to the damned thing.

"4. PROFIT -- !!!"

-kgj

Re:Yes, rip-on-the-fly as well - hard disk is a ca

[micromoog]

And even this group of people probably forms a cache which feeds its misses as requests to the poor sods who have to run out into the Russian weather to chase down obscure CDs in the shops. :-)

They prob'ly just hit Kazaa for those.

Straight from the Terms and Conditions

[q-the-impaler]

You agree with the fact that you are not able to use and even to download audio and video materials from Allofmp3.com catalogue if it is in the conflict with legislation of your country. Allofmp3.com Administration is unable to control all Allofmp3.com users, therefore the users are responsible for usage of the materials represented on the Site.

So basically they leave it up to you to figure out if you are breaking the law or not. IANAL, but it sounds like the RIAA would definitely fine me for DLing music from here.

And who are you to judge?

[achurch]

Given that the site is located in Russia, it is (or at least was originally) probably intended mainly for Russian users. I doubt any of the service administrators speak native English. Think how you'd feel if you had a site in English and Russian, and Russian users called it "shady" because your Russian was bad. Then think again on your comment.

in unrelated news - MPAA: brainwashing children

[Avishalom]

what did you learn in school today
I will go to a music shop and buy more CD's

that is the scariest bit of news i've heard lately
(mpaa has a new program that teaches children they should buy more , 'if you don't pay for it - you've stolen it' , by giving , get this, the teachers yearly free movie passes,... there's more , worth your time ..)
originally here , a couple of days ago, and making waves

Good site.

[man_ls]

I've been using their site for about 6 months now, for pay, with no problems. They haven't stolen my CC number, the files are immaculate quality, and I've been able to get hard-to-find music that doesn't exist except in a few random music stores here in the states.

Best part?

It's legal.

Or just the opposite

[Namarrgon]

In some countries (e.g. here in Australia), "sole distribution rights" does not make parallel importation by the consumer illegal - and if the "sole distributor" tries to tell you it is illegal, that's considered Restriction of Trade (which is illegal :-)

I believe this has been tested in court over here, and it's still legal to "grey-market" CDs and other products.

AllOfMP3 Top Ten

[telstar]

For anyone interested in grabbing AllofMP3's top-ten, I've compiled their current list.

10. Boris - Boris Sings the Blues
9. Svetlana - Oops, Svetlana did it again
8. Katerina Jones - Feels like Moscow
7. Natalya - Toxic ... Water
6. Igor - Looking For You ... on the Bread Line
5. Leonid - Damita Leonid
4. Yuri - Yuri, Unplugged
3. Karina - 99 Bottles of Vodka
2. Sonya - The Red Album
1. 50 Rubles - Get Warm or Die Tryin

Re:One of these days, Alice

[squiggleslash]

Now I await them finding a way to do it without charging money.

Hmmm, well the three things that spring to mind are:

• Product placement - a well tested system that has helped reduce theatre and DVD prices for us all, with no apparent compromises made to the movies we watch. Indeed, some of us use this to fund our postings to Slashdot, and when I sit back, drink an ice cool refreshing Vanilla Coca Cola, and scan Slashdot.org on my Apple PowerBook, I can see the advantages straight away.
• Government grants - we the people benefit from music, so surely what we want is we the people to fund it. A minor increase in our taxes will ensure the money is well spent, providing grants for individual artists. A diverse and innovative range of music will be at our disposal, once those in charge of issuing grants determine what music deserves to be made, according, of course, to national community values. Of course, compromises will have to be made - music about sex, politics, religion, or that uses any of the words George Carlin was fined for protesting about his inability to use on television, will obviously not be made. We don't want tax payer's money spent on that kind of filth, and if the government issuing grants means that alternative sources of funding dry up, well, that's just a positive side effect that will keep America clean.
• Music can be funded through concerts - I don't need to tell you that I'd much rather pay $50 to see Orbital or The Chemical Brothers in concert than listen to them on my iPod lying on my bed with my eyes closed. I mean, can you imagine? Those samples, being acted out and mixed live. Definitely a viable way of funding music, because everyone who likes a particular type of music wants to see concerts and sees concerts as an appropriate way of listening to music.
• Isn't it about time artists just created music for the love of it? I mean, they're creating something, surely that's enough. Surely they should fund their day to day living expenses by working a full time job. Sure, if they have a full time job they're unlikely to have the time and energy to produce much, but that's better than being a lazy, scrounging, whiner who insists on making us pay them a few dollars for something that enriches our lives and helps make us happy. Our praise should be enough, surely? Ungrateful whiners!

And those are just the excellent funding ideas from the top of my head (actually El Reg's and the many Slashdotters heads, from memory.) Music can be free, all we have to do is not pay for it!

Re:*RI* represents artists... not. Think RA*

[Uninvited Guest]

But ideally they're representing artists rights, put to that position by artists...

That is not correct. The *RI* organizations represent the recording industry, not artists. Recording artists are represented by organizations like the Recording Acadamy and the Recording Artists Coalition --organizations which are often at odds with the RIAA.

Sigh. Here we go again.

[nanojath]

I wouldn't presume to argue the legality of this for people outside Russia. I have no idea. I'll continue my policy of trying not to purchase or access new copies of copyrighted materials unless I'm confident they are sold with the approval of the copyright owner or their agent. I would be curious to know if copyright owners are getting anything back from these sales.

The primary interest in this to me is how it points out the growing gap between the major content conglomerates' business models and the reality of what they're producing. We all know the prices on CDs are ridiculously high compared to their production costs - one or two dollars versus ten or twenty, very very roughly. With online it has become even more ridiculous - pennies to deliver the data versus a dollar or more to buy a song. Yet Apple tells us it can't make money.

The lesson I wish was being learned here is that we have entered the age where a recording contract with a major label is like a huge freaking albatross around your neck. The reason Apple can't make money on iTunes is because between the cumbersome necessity of verification and the enormous skim the labels are demanding there's nothing left over - bringing the ridiculous situation where they can't make money selling data transfers of say 3-10 MB for a buck.

The labels are indeed to blame but I personally don't want to rectify the situation by finding a way to get their stuff for free or extra cheap. I'd much rather see artists realize that they don't need the labels anymore, they just need some technical help and better organized consumers. Just as anyone can now go and pay someone a pretty nominal amount to burn CDs in bulk with whatever data they want on them, anyone can now go and pay an even more nominal fee per bit to have someone serve whatever data they want on demand. Screw Russia, go hit http://www.bitpass.com and check the music offerings - songs for pennies. That's a real revolution, my friends.

Indeed

[poptones]

I've posted about them several times. I also like to point out that I regularly buy Russian music CDs from an importer in NY, and each of those CDs costs me all of 6 bucks. So for those trolls saying "these aren't legal" then I offer you this: how is an importer able to get away with selling these physical goods in the US?

The big RIAA labels all have a presence over there. My fave artist, Linda, has had a record contract with (I believe) BMG for quite some time. She regularly appears on Russian MTV and there was even an English language version of "Vorona" ("Crow") made for (always impending) US release. And remember TATU?

So, if these labels are so insistent that there is no money to be made in a country where lax copyright controls exist, why (and how) have they retained a presence in a country where nearly two thirds of all content sold in stores is "pirated?"

From Tatu's own website, these figures:

February 2002 - Universal Music Russia releases an enlarged edition of the album "200 in the opposite direction" with a new design and with a new track "Clowns". The song "Clowns" appears regularly on the "Russian Radio", "Dynamite FM", "Hit-FM" and "Europe +".

March 2002 - re-release of the album "200kph in the wrong lane" beats all the records during the first week of sales: 60,000 of legal copies sold!

Now the number of sold copies of the TATU albums is about 1,100,000!

60,000 "lega" copies out of more than a Million are sold, and Universal seems to have no problem with betting on this horse... meanwhile, here in the US, laws keep getting passed...

Russia is not the problem here. The US is the problem. and I hope sites like this continue to prosper, and it demolishes the US entertainment industry. After all, "constructive destruction" is what capitalism is all about. How ironic these "capitalists" seem only able to realize this lesson at the hands of a formerly soviet socialist state.

Re:Well, it ISN'T too good to be true

[Uninvited Guest]

While some degree of importation is allowed per 602 and 109, this doesn't qualify

Let's go to the code, shall we?
US Code Title 17, Chapter 6, Sec. 602 Infringing importation of copies or phonorecords

(a) Importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title, of copies or phonorecords of a work that have been acquired outside the United States is an infringement of the exclusive right to distribute copies or phonorecords under section 106, actionable under section 501. This subsection does not apply to -
(2) importation, for the private use of the importer and not for distribution, by any person with respect to no more than one copy or phonorecord of any one work at any one time, or by any person arriving from outside the United States with respect to copies or phonorecords forming part of such person's personal baggage;

MAI SYSTEMS CORP. v. PEAK COMPUTER didn't involve importing for personal use, so hardly applicable here.

And, as we learned from RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia (regarding the Diamond RIO MP3 player), facilitation of personal use gets broad protection under fair use.

So, is downloading MP3's from Russia importation or not? If it is importation, then personal use is covered under section 602. If it is not importation, then the duplication in the U.S. should still be covered under personal use; i.e., you legally bought the right in Russia to duplicate the copyrighted work to your Diamond RIO MP3 player for your personal use in the U.S.

Re:TANSTAAFL.

[BlueStrat]

As an artist/musician myself, I won't *ever* sign with a label. That being said, I know a number of my fellow musicians/friends who *did* sign with a label, and I can safely say they don't give a rip if you buy the music they created for the labels from Russia, Ethiopia, or simply d/l it from a P2P or steal it off the damned shelf at your local record store! Unless your sales put you near the top, as an artist signed with a label, you make next to *nothing* from sales. You actually make *much* more from the damned T-shirt sales at your shows than you do from record sales if you're signed with a label! Have no fear, if you're worried about how much money you're taking out of the mouths of starving artists/musicians by screwing the RIAA/labels don't. You aren't. The RIAA/labels beat you to that decades ago.