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Music Site AllofMP3 Under Investigation
Nick Irelan writes "AllofMP3.com, a Russian music site that is famous due to its low prices, has been accused of copyright infringment. Although the site said it bought licenses, some record companies are claiming that the documents it purchased aren't valid. The Moscow Police Computer Crimes Division has investigated AllofMP3 and the Moscow Prosecuter's office must decide what it will do by March 7th."
What does this mean for any of us American citizens that...ahem...may have used Allofmp3s services?
Will there be a price to pay for us? The legality is quite confusing (and yes, ignorance of the law, no matter how stupid, is no defence) and who knows what will happen to us.....
Me? I got rid of my account and waiting to see whats next......
My MythTV HowTo
Canadians have enjoyed free downloads because of a tax that we pay on blank media. It will be interesting to see if the customer list of allofmp3.com gets 'acquired' by any law enforcement or copyright holder in North America. If so, I wonder if any Canadian downloader would have broken any laws? I suspect not, but IANAL.
BroadbandPig
I, hypothetically speaking, downloaded from AllofMP3. I didn't really care that it's illegal. The important thing to me and many others is that the music was high quality and at a much more reasonable rate than iTunes. It was a reasonable enough rate that paying for AllofMP3 was a better value for me than wasting my time sorting through Kazaa. AllofMP3 gave me good quality OGGs or LAME MP3s with fast downloads, and was probably closer to being legal than Kazaa.
Allofmp3 used a provision (loophole?) in the Russian copyright law that basically allows you to distribute music online if you pay the Russian music copyright clearing house a standard (and quite low) charge per song download. The clearing house then distributes the profits back to the artists. My guess is that Russian bureaucracy doesn't make it easy for Western artists to register with the clearing house or get their money from it -- not even considering the fact that any western record company would consider the clearing house charges per download laughably small.
|blockquote>Why is this innovative shop against the "law?" Is this something analogous to the Sklyarov case where US media laws were extended to russia?
The problem (as far as I understand international copyright regulations, IANAL) ist that to operate a service like allofmp3, you have to acquire a distribution license from
1. The copyright holder
2. The Company producing the music/the cd
Whereas a license from the copyright holder can be acquired by russian authorities for worldwide distribution (google for "Santiago Treaty"), the license from the industry must be acquired for each country from which the service is accesible. This IMHO makes it nearly impossible to operate a download service without backing from the music industry...
While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.
I was pondering opening an account there after my friend pointed me to the site. It looked like a great deal.. any format, any bit rate, wide selection of music I like (which is mostly European), and a more than reasonable prices based on bandwidth. Beats the snot out of anything else I've seen, and I'd be more than happy to pay them their prices than sift through p2p or IRC or what-have-you. Guess I should've known it was too good to be true. If they don't make it through this, I sure as hell hope another site comes along and manages to do it legally. Anyone else know of other services with similar prices and selection?
...since nothing is as simple as it seems in Russia (that early capitalism, you know). There are quite a number of sites which allow downloading music in Russia - another one, which I'm using, is mp3spy.ru - they have a deal with my ADSL provider, tochka.ru, which is the biggest one in Moscow. Tochka.ru is a daughter company of MGTS, Moscow telephone monopolists - that's why mp3spy.ru can be quite certain about its future. This legal move could be just an attempt to shut down a competition - all that allofmp3 needed is just a big guy behind its shoulders.
This is what the Russian head of the IFPI said back in March of 2004
"So as IFPI Russia's legal adviser, Vladimir Dragunov, concedes: "Because of these loopholes we don't have much chance of succeeding if we attack these companies who are using music files on the Internet under current Russian laws."
So unless the laws have changed since then the police can investigate as much as they like but it doesn't look like there is much chance of a conviction.
Actually it doesn't matter if allofmp3 is illegal in Russia. The loophole in US copyright law that allows for individuals to import copies of art for personal use is a very thorough one: it doens't even matter if the material was legal in its own country. The loophole is designed to make it safe to go to Thailand, buy a music CD, and come back to the US without having to do a bunch of research to make sure you aren't breaking the law. You can import it legally even if it is an obvious bootleg.
With regard to the people wondering whether they should close their AllOfMP3.com account, go into hiding, skip the country etc, I have a question for any legal types out there:
If I buy from a real high-street shop that stocks really cheap stuff, and where I suspect, but don't know, that their goods were stolen, am I breaking the law? If they tell me the goods are cheap because of some "legal loophole", am I to blame if I buy their goods?
I suspect not, but then, as they say, IANAL...
Their catalogue covers stuff that is not found in iTunes or other US-based media industry's services.
That may be true, but it's at the cost of not having a single goddamn thing I want.
From my "buyme" list: Atmosphere, RJD2, Sage Francis, Kid Koala, Kid606, Dwayne Sodahberk, The Decemberists, Hot Snakes, Arcade Fire -- AllOfMP3 had none of these. iTunes had all of them. And that's not even the obscure stuff.
[I would have tried more, but AllofMP3 seems to be Slashdotted now.]
They have even rare stuff that is not on P2P services!
Some of that "rare" stuff happens to be the same mislabeled crap that's on P2P services. The example I'm most familiar with is an album called "Pearl" supposedly by Portishead. Almost any P2P network will have a bajillion copies of it labeled that way, when in fact the album isn't by Portishead. Hell, the title isn't even "Pearl". It's by some European band trying very hard and failing even harder to sound like Portishead.
The last time I checked (admittedly this was long ago), AllOfMP3 still carried "Portishead - Pearl". I thought it was pretty clear then that they're getting at least some of those supposedly lossless tracks off of P2P networks. To put it another way: Some of those lossless FLACs you bought may well have originated as MP3s off of KaZaA. I don't have proof of this, but it's fishy enough that I don't trust AllOfMP3 enough to buy anything from them.
This little russian shop enriches culture.
You're an idiot.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
"AllOfMp3's insanely cheap" ... or US downloads are insanely expensive.
You're missing the fact that allofmp3 offers encoding of extremely high quality, in a variety of formats. Furthermore, you're guaranteed to get the song you want, not some RIAA-spiked fake. This choice is not typically available through any P2P network. That's why we use allofmp3.
First of all, Russia was never a fascist country. It was totalitarian, but never a fascist.
:)
Current situation is quite an interesting one. Putin has done more liberal reforms in economic, than Eltsin did during his second term, but political situation is getting more and more like in USSR.
It's all very complex for me to explain it in a short message
Yes, there is a such loophole in Russian laws.
Where is a 'broadcast license' in Russia: radio stations pay a small fee to ROMS (noncommercial organisation) every time a song is broadcasted, ROMS then distributes money to the performers. There was a court decision in Russia that each song download is equal to its broadcasting. Ringtones for cell phones may also be covered by this license.
So there is a mechanism for you to get some money from this but they haven't replied to your e-mails. Have you tried phoning or writing to them ?
I imagine it's not unheard of for artists or performers to experience much worse problems getting any money out of Western record companies.
I have given them my credit card number something like a year ago and have not been the victim of any fraud or anyother unsavoury activity.
In Soviet Russia... they can send you to Siberia - it's rather hard to get a good broadband connection there...
:-)
Actually, the Sibir hotel in Novosibirsk, Siberia has a room on the seventh floor with two computers and a broadband connection. Only $1 per hour.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Setting aside the legal issues, I see this as the flipside of globalization. The big corps are thrilled to tout the benefits of globalization when they want to exploit third world workers for pennies on the dollar. Now they can get hit with the other side of the equation, we can choose to BUY things from other countries for less than we can here for the same reasons. Oh wait, now that it's THIER wallet being hit, it's "wrong". Poor, poor billionaires. I feel soooo bad for them.
I'm tired of the corps having thier cake and eating it too. And I consider myself libertarian, so that should tell you something. Corporations, like Copyrights, are SUPPOSED to be part of a balance of power between them and the rest of us. We are supposed to benefit as well. The balance has been lost.