Visa Cuts Off AllOfMp3.com

denebian devil writes "On the heals of allofmp3.com's press conference trying to clean up its image, Visa has suspended its credit card service to allofmp3.com. From the article "[Allofmp3 is] no longer permitted to accept Visa cards," said Simon Barker, a Visa International spokesman. "The action we've taken is in line with legislation passed in Russia and international copyright law." Almost simultaneously, allofmp3.com has announced that it is shifting over to an ad-supported model. For those who don't want to (or can't) buy allofmp3's DRM-free music, they are providing DRM-laden music that can be played only within a restricted player provided by the website."

Comments

AllOfMp3.com's Legality (or lack of)

[eldavojohn]

This whole time AllOfMp3 has been operating, it has been under a clause in the Russian government's legislation (from their site):

The availability over the Internet of the ALLOFMP3.com materials is authorized by the license # LS-3?-05-03 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society (ROMS) and license # 006/3M-05 of the Rightholders Federation for Collective Copyright Management of Works Used Interactively (FAIR). In accordance to the licenses' terms MediaServices pays license fees for all materials downloaded from the site subject to the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights". All these materials are solely for personal use. Any further distribution, resale or broadcasting are prohibited.

The works available from ALLOFMP3.com are protected by the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights" and are for personal use of a buyer. Commercial use of such material is prohibited. Recording, copying, distribution on any media is possible only upon special consent of a Rightholder.

The user bears sole responsibility for any use and distribution of all materials received from AllOFMP3.com. This responsibility is dependent on the national legislation in each user's country of residence. The Administration of AllOFMP3.com does not possess information on the laws of each particular country and is not responsible for the actions of foreign users.

Read that last paragraph, if you've been in the United States & using AllOfMp3.com, they've been shifting legality issues to you. Visa has now chosen to recognize this issue and not be party to breaking the law.

So, to recap, it seems that media in Russia is still somewhat regarded as belonging to the people. However, this is not true in many other countries.

I cannot say I blame them with the gustapo **AA about.

Re:AllOfMp3.com's Legality (or lack of)

[Pofy]

>2) Import laws (goes something like "copies that couldn't
>legally have been made in the US, can't be imported to the
>US". Since the Russian law doesn't apply in the US, you
>can't import copies made under that law.

Why do people who don't know the law, insists on making up their own version of it? Here is a link to the relevant law you probably think you are telling about:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/us c_sec_17_00000602----000-.html

Note the exceptions (2), which would be applicable to anyone buying music over the net in single quantities of each work. Thus, it doesn't count as importation and the restrictions you refer to are not applicable and irrellevant.

Re:AllOfMp3.com's Legality (or lack of)

[swillden]

Visa makes money off of every transaction.

"Visa" doesn't make money on transactions. The various organizations who own the Visa brand are banking consortia. Their job is to manage the brand name, define payment standards, validate implementations of those standards, and generally do whatever makes sense to facilitate their membership's ability to make money. The Visa organizations are primarily funded by dues paid by the member banks.

When you make a Visa payment, the money passes through two or three sets of hands. It goes like this:

1. The merchant submits the transaction to a bank the merchant has a relationship with. This bank is called the "merchant acquirer". Some of the big merchant acquirers don't do any retail or wholesale banking, but are just transaction processors. Nevertheless, they're banks. They have to be.
2. The merchant acquirer submits the transaction either to a clearinghouse (which, with one notable exception, is not really related to any official Visa organization) or directly to the bank that issued your credit card (called the "issuer").
3. The issuer validates the transaction and sends a notification back to the merchant acquirer (possibly via the clearinghouse).
4. The merchant acquirer (eventually) puts money into the merchant's bank account.
5. The issuer sends you a bill.

The merchant acquirer and issuer both make money on the transaction, and the clearinghouse, if any, takes another small slice. The issuer obviously also makes money on finance charges if you don't pay your balance off right away.

All of this just highlights the fact that none of these players have any interest at all in shutting off the flow of money to allofmp3. The acquirer that allofmp3 uses is a Russian bank, so they have no legal issues, and plenty of interest in taking a slice of allofmp3's business. The various issuing banks are individually anonymous in the situation, they figure their only responsibility is to make sure that the transactions are not fraudulent -- mainly because they don't want to end up potentially footing the bill for the fraud. The clearinghouses just want to push transactions from point A to point B.

Each player can point to the others and say that it ought to be their decision as to whether or not payments from a certain merchant should be accepted. The most logical decisionmaker as to the legitimacy of the merchant is the acquirer -- and that's the Russian bank for whom there's no legal issue!

I find it quite surprising that Visa International decided to step in and order their members (the organizations who pay them!) not to accept allofmp3.com payments.

Re:AllOfMp3.com's Legality (or lack of)

[yppiz]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Visa (the corporate entity) also runs VisaNet, the network over which Visa transactions are sent, and charges a small fee per transaction.

Also, here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry for Visa decribing Visa's complex corporate structure.

*

Legally, Visa comprises four non-stock, separately incorporated companies that employ 6000 people worldwide: Visa International Service Association ("VISA"), the worldwide parent entity; Visa U.S.A. Inc.; Visa Canada Association; and Visa Europe Ltd. The latter three separately incorporated regions have the status of group members of Visa International Service Association, whereas the unincorporated regions (Visa Latin America [LAC], Visa Asia Pacific and Visa Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa [CEMEA]) are divisions within VISA.

--Pat

Re:For everything you want to buy...

[igny]

Mastercard cut off AllofMP3 as well.

Re:For everything you want to buy...

[NetDanzr]

That's where paying through third parties comes in. I've been using XROST for over a year when recharging my Allofmp3 account, and that method has been always working well. Similar system has been working with sports betting sites for a while, and given how easy it is to reroute money I don't think non-US based businesses will have to shut down anytime soon.

Re:For everything you want to buy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange, because my Mastercard payment just went through AOK.

Re:For everything you want to buy...

[chill]

Mastercard cut off AllofMP3 as well.

No, they didn't. Mastercard is the only credit/debit option that works, as of 5 minutes ago.

Re:that was fun while it lasted...

[Alphager]

Why is it dead? If you want to continue to use VISA, go to XROST, buy a XROST-giftcertificate, which you then redeem at allofmp3.com .

Re:alternative

[InfinityWpi]

No, actually, that link goes through to chronopay, and they aren't taking Visa either. Thanks for playing tho!

Reminder: AllofMP3 uses broadcast rules

[Uninvited Guest]

FWIW, remember that allofmp3.com claims to be "broadcasting" music on demand over the Internet, under the broadcast laws in Russia. Allofmp3.com pays its royalties based on those broadcast rules. This is similar to how ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC work with broadcast radio stations in this country; the royalties are sent to an agency which distributes the proceeds directly to the artists. The RIAA and others are claiming that allofmp3.com is duplicating and distributing recordings without paying for the rights to do so. Depending on how Russian law on broadcast rights is worded, allofmp3.com may be perfectly legitimate.

Re:XROST?

[NetDanzr]

XROST is simply an on-line gift card shop. You purchase a gift card, and get a card number and pin code in return. You input this information into Allofmp3, and your account is recharged.

Not so long ago, XROST still worked with PayPal. Currently, it works primarily with prepaid cash cards - the type you mention - but also with Click&Buy, which is available in the US. I've got family in Europe, so for me it's easiest to Skype them and ask for one of the cash cards.

Re:that was fun while it lasted...

[lordofthechia]

I'd rather buy my CD's used online for about $4 shipped. I can wait till they drop to that price and by then I'm sure I'm not contributing to the RIAA's pockets.

Re:PayPal?

[Kadin2048]

As anyone who's used PayPal can probably attest to, they're extremely aggressive about closing accounts down over the slightest thing.

I doubt AllOfMp3's accounts there lasted ten minutes.

I think XROST is their way of getting around the financing problems of directly accepting credit cards or PayPal. You can (apparently?) buy XROST "cards" using either a credit card or PayPal, and then turn around and use that card at AllOfMp3 to load your account.

I'm not sure whether this is a totally safe tactic; it seems like in time, governments will just pressure the banks to stop allowing payments to XROST, either, and PayPal will similarly close down and seize their accounts. Plus, there's always the change that if XROST is a U.S. corporation, they could be gone after more directly for their billing records.

I did a WHOIS lookup against xrost.biz, and although the registrant is out of Belize, it's a suspiciously Russian-sounding name. Their registrar, however, is GoDaddy, so I wonder if the RIAA could go after them in the same way that the spammers went after SpamHaus -- ordering their domain closed down.

Registrant Name: Pavel Korchagin
Registrant Organization: OCENA RESOURCES CORPORATION
Registrant Address1: JASMINE COURT
Registrant Address2: 35A REGENT STREET
Registrant City: BELIZE CITY
Registrant State/Province: BELIZE CITY
Registrant Postal Code: 177
Registrant Country: Belize
Registrant Country Code: BZ
Registrant Phone Number: +501.37369147357
Registrant Email: support@intercardservice.com

Intercardservice.com is registered by a "DomainsByProxy.com" of Scottsdale, Arizona -- another U.S. based avenue of attack -- and I notice that their "Legal Issues" page contains the paragraph:

Prohibitions: Domains By Proxy will not do business with you,
nor protect your identity, if you:
              Transmit spam, viruses or harmful computer programs;
  Violate the law or infringe a third party's trademark or copyright;
  Engage in morally objectionable activities, including but not limited to those which are child pornographic, defamatory, abusive, harassing, obscene, racist, or otherwise objectionable.

All in all, probably safe enough to use right now, but I'm not sure how long it's going to stand up to the combined efforts of the RIAA and their pet politicos.

Re:For everything you want to buy...

[Balthisar]

Just tried my Mastercard, and then I stopped. It looks like payments are now being outsourced to some place called www.e-centru.com, which is in Moldova. I don't remember ever being redirected to another payment site in the past, although it's showing that I last recharged my account on March 17th, 2005 (I don't buy a lot of music [or pirate it for that matter]). Anyone else ever been directed to this company to accept payments? It *is* showing just Mastercard as an option.

Well... here goes. That's what fraud protection is good for.

Well, it worked. Now I've got to figure out $25.25 worth of music that I want. I wish they had audiobooks.

Re:For everything you want to buy...

[dmitrygr]

Actually, if you go to alltunes.com, and register there, the balanace is shared with allOfMp3 (you can refill it at alltunes, and use at allofmp3), AND alltunes STILL works with visa (as they use a 3-rd party processor "CHRONOPAY")

Re:alternative

[daern]

Yey for slashdot! You've not even tried it have you? Alltunes is actually a pretty cool application for getting music from allofmp3. It's quick, clever, lightweight and well designed. Oh, and it's free too. And not encumbered with loads of extra software that you don't want. Oh, no DRM too.

You can even leave it running at home and when you order stuff at work, alltunes will download it. Clever eh?

Oh, except that you're still rubbing your "open standard" sticks together, trying to make some fire...

Re:For everything you want to buy...

[Anonymous Coward]

That sudden www.e-centru.com worried me as well (did YOU write down the SHA1 fingerprint
of allofmp3's certificate?) :-).

I tried to verify the name at the Moldova central bank website but I couldn't find a list of bona-fide banks there.
They showed an address in Chisinau's main street but for all I know this could
be a post address :-) This address was very close to some kind of reputable agro-business bank
so I thought what the hell I'll risk $50 anyway.

Well, FWIW my payment went through flawlessly, I got an e-mail receipt from payment@e-centru.com,
and I haven't seen any plunderings of my credit card
after a month or so (yet).

Who knows, maybe for a russian customer a Moldovan e-bank account is posh
and trustworthy :-) I trust them now for up to $100, say.

alltunes is also shut off

[WebHostingGuy]

According to MSNBC alltunes was shut off Oct 1 already by Visa; they are not that stupid, yet. (And no, mastercard does not work either).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15323093/

Re:For everything you want to buy...

[OverlordQ]

BZZZZZT! WRONG!

Chronopay only takes:
Mastercard
Diners
JCB
Maestro / Solo / Switch / STB

No VISA

Re:alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

To pay for music you can use xrost, and then use clicktobuy (allofmp3 links to xrost, which links to clicktobuy) -- you use clicktobuy (which takes Visa) to refill your xrost card, then enter the details xrost gives you to pay allofmp3. I've used this, it works. (I would have preferred to use PayPal, but there doesn't seem to be any PayPal payment option left, even via indirect systems like xrost)

If you are using Linux and want to download the music you purchaced (not using alltunes), the "basket" page has a list of links. Do something like this:

• Open list of links (separate page)
• Copy and paste all the links to a text file
• Run for URL in `cat links.txt` ; do wget "$URL" ; done

Re:For everything you want to buy...

[sustik]

I made a payment yesterday and bought some songs using those credits. I can understand that some are vary about paying on russian or non-us operated websites. But let me point out that it would be very foolish for allofmp3.com engage in any fraudulent activity, since appearently they are under heavy scrutiny.

Though you may say that I am pretty ignorant about the accusations against them, I keep an eye on any *official* news regarding their legality. I find their service of good quality (ogg encoding anywhere else?) and value, I need more than accusations to stop using their service.

Newer songs and/or smaller bands are not always avialable on allofmp3.com. I recently bought a CD online from a local band. I made sure of course that the label in question is NOT an RIAA member (wikipedia has a list).