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)

[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:For everything you want to buy...

[igny]

Mastercard cut off AllofMP3 as well.

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")