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Russia Agrees To Shut Down AllOfMP3.com
Pro-SEO writes, "An official document (PDF), dated November 19, summarizes an agreement between the U.S. and Russia in which Russia has agreed to close down AllofMP3.com, and any sites that 'permit illegal distribution of music and other copyright works.' The agreement is posted to the Web site for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. It summarizes the joint efforts of the two countries to fight content piracy, an issue in which Russia and Eastern Europe figure prominently." From the document: "This agreement sets the stage for further progress on IPR issues in Russia through the next phase of multilateral negotiations, during which the United States and other WTO members will examine Russia's IPR regime."
And if they do see a corresponding increase in their music sales, will you then realise the opposite?
Yes, for I am not an asshat.
I'm in Russia, and I am an avid and price-sensitive media consumer. So let me make a prognosis.
1. Allofmp3.com will be closed, law or not, if the top of the government, i.e. Putin personally, orders it. Our government regularly follows such orders regardless of the law (by the way I'm not happy at all with it). The question is if Putin finds it fitting to "bow to the demands" of a foreign state, which I hope he will not, for the national pride reasons.
2. A slower solution that would satisfy the U.S. in the internet trade would be changing our Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights. Here it depends on the Duma, which I think will not act on this without a request from the executive branch (see above). (Even given such a request, Duma may decide to refuse to bow to external demands, or simply not see it a high priority in their lawmaking.)
3. "Keeping raids at the same level" is not going to stop domestic sale of unlicensed disks. I often hear staff of media outlets complaining about raids and mass confiscations of their stock, but all that it has achieved by now is intermittent supply of some quality DVD copies (like DVD-9 of obscure titles), and somewhat higher prices (at most +50%).
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
Allof MP3 offered to pay royalties. All anyone had to do was fill out a form. The **AAs refused to deal with them, so they could do exactly what they've done today: call them pirates and get the US govt to force them out of business.
Because they refused to take it.
Or this one from Steve Vai.
Well, I guess this demonstrates that you're at risk of being strongarmed not just if you obtain RIAA music, but also when you sell it. And, as we all know, it doesn't matter if you're doing it legally or illegally. All in name of the artists, even if they get just a tiny share of what the cartel charges for the music.
I've had enough.
We don't need the copyright cartel to handle distribution and go after the pirates anymore. We definitely don't need them to set the prices, pocket most of the revenue, and randomly sue anyone who comes into contact with the music.
So let's see a list of sites that distribute (for pay or for free) music outside of the cartel, directly on behalf of the artists. I'll only do business with sites that offer Ogg Vorbis files and that let me listen to the music before deciding if I want to buy it.
I'll start:
Music is Here!
Independent Music Online
On Classical
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
The EU market isn't quite that big, but the argument you're making is valid anyway.
In the excellent CIA World Factbook, we find that the purchasing power partity GDP numbers for the US, EU and the world are:
US: 12.31 trillion
EU: 12.18 trillion
World: 60.63 trillion
In other words: EU and the US each have 20% of the world's economic power.
This is all fine and well, but the problem is that the US is behaving as if it was still 1945, when the US was the economic giant of the world, and nobody else came close.
Especially in IP matters, the US has pursued a very agressive course against most other countries in the world. So far the US has managed to get away with this strategy, but it hasn't made the US any new friends around the world.
Looking at the GDP numbers and thinking about how the percentages will shift in the future, it's not obvious that the attitude "do as we say, or else..." will work indefinitely. If you want to behave like a bully and dictate the terms for everybody else, you'd better be considerably stronger than everybody else if you want to get away with it. And the US ain't, to put it bluntly.
It is quite possible that the RIAA/MPAA dictated strong arm tactics of the US government may one day start to backfire. When it does, that could be start of some very interesting times.
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
"They can do what they like with it"
And according to the Russian laws that AllOfMP3 diligently followed, so can anyone else who has possesion. So far AllOfMP3 have been operating as a legitimate business, regardless of what your opinion on the matter is.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Or this one by Steve Albini
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
It's a known fact that the numbers in recording companies books are magical. They are sued and loose every year for underreporting profits for individual artists. They just keep doing it because they get away with it often enough to make it profitable.
For one example from the video industry:
For the record, that's over 1% of the gross from the theatrical release of the movie.
If you want cooking the books, look no farther than the 15% "breakage" that record companies deduct from the digital sales through iTunes.
The bottom line, in layman's terms, is that it's not easy to break into any established market as an "average Joe", even if Joe is a smart, well-educated and creative individual, or set of individuals. If it were, we wouldn't see commerce in the world largely being driven by global corporations, and corner shop greengrocers would be effectively competing with the Wal-Marts of the world. There's plenty of smarts in the world, but capitalism rewards having lots of money and existing corporate structures far more than "smarts".
On a related note, do you have any insight into why Magnatunes isn't more popular? They sell albums for as low as $5, which is almost a third of what they cost in stores.Easy - they're almost unknown to the general public. I certainly hadn't heard of them before you mentioned them.
Just to make it even more difficult for them - those in the know enough to know about Magnatunes also probably know about AllOfMp3... having a direct competitor at a quarter of the price (with a really usable service, too) hurts badly.
They pay their artists half of the sale price... do you think that's their mistake? Do you think they should go the allofmp3 route and pay artists nothing, then sell albums for $2.50 each?
AllOfMp3 pay royalties that, under Russian copyright law and the regulations of the non-profit organisations that regulate them (FAIR and ROMS), can be claimed by any relevant copyright owner. The royalties are 15% (see the AllOfMp3 legality FAQ, which is an interesting read). We could debate whether 15% is reasonable (even AllOfMp3 admit they are considering paying another 5% directly to the artist), but it's not really fair to say that they pay the artists nothing.