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."

Comments

The real PlaysForSure

[linuxci]

Although I've never used it I would have to say this site was the real Plays for Sure of the music world. It's a shame the record companies did not embrace this model as a lot of people would be willing to pay iTunes prices for DRM-free audio in a choice of formats. Instead the only site that offered consumers choice is being closed down which would be fair enough if a viable legal alternative would spring up, but until the RIAA start embracing technology that won't happen.

Re:The real PlaysForSure

[Dhalka226]

As I understood it, the artists never earned a penny from sales through this site, so it might be great for the consumers, but why on earth would you expect the music industry to embrace this?

Well if that is true, that's a shame. But he doesn't expect the RIAA to embrace the website; he expects them to embrace what the website offered: Choice of formats without DRM restrictions. Allofmp3, even at 320kbps MP3, was only like 20-30 cents per song and the grandparent rightly supposes that people would pay more for those same choices, even the $0.99 an iTunes track costs. I can vouch for this myself. I do not purchase from iTunes because of the DRM issues (the lack of choice too, but to a lesser extent) but would be happy to pay $0.99 for that 320 kbps MP3 if that is what I want a particular song in.

I doubt Allofmp3 was a charity operation, so they were making money even with the low prices. That means that if the RIAA were to set up an identical system, and increase the prices such that the highest bitrate MP3* was $0.99, they would have roughly 60 cents per download of guaranteed profit on top of whatever the production/distribution costs of the files are that they can split amongst the artists. Does the artist get 60% right now? Heck, even if the RIAA pocketed half I think the artists would still end up making more under this scheme than they do for the current incarnation of iTunes.

I think cinema tickets are too expensive, so I dont go, but you can bet that the number of people who *do* go outweigh the small loses by losing me as a customer.

That is a different issue. Cinema tickets are a limited resource. Once all the tickets for a show are sold out, they can't sell more. In that sense, losing you as a customer only matters if demand is less than the number of seats available. Otherwise, they simply won't even notice you did not come. If supply is great, they either need to add more show dates (which is not always feasible) or expand the theater size and hope that the next show that comes through has similar demand. If not, they're losing money.

Online music distribution is different. The costs to distribute another copy of a given song are miniscule, nearly negligible. The fact that you only produce that extra cost when somebody purchases the song means you ALWAYS make a profit on expansion. It would be like if every time somebody new wanted a ticket to that cinema show, a new seat--equally as good as every other seat in the place--would spring magically into existence. In this case, if you refused to buy a song because of the cost it would be a direct impact to them. Even if there are five buyers for every non-buyer, they'll still feel it because it's essentially free money to them. They had five sales where they could have had six, instead of having a sell-out where they could have had... a sell-out.

Allofmp3 obviously made this system work at less than $0.99 a song, so it's doable. The only explanation I can think of as to why the RIAA doesn't give it a shot is because they're control freaks who are desperately trying to prove to the world that they were somehow still needed when they really are not.

I'm sure piracy is a problem for them, although I'm also sure it's not nearly as big a problem monetarily as they would have us believe. The don't seem to realize that they can eliminate a large segment of that piracy by offering low-cost products. Pirating a $17 CD might be worth it. Pirating a $0.99 song becomes significantly less so. If I care enough about the song that I would want it at a high bitrate, such as this hypothetical new RIAA service would offer me, it would be even harder to find and less worth pirating.

But meh. Logic doesn't seem to be high atop the RIAA's list of traits.

* I keep mentioning 320kbps MP3 because that's what I got when I wanted a high-quality version. I could do OGG I suppose, but I don't; and honestly, I could personally hear no difference between the 320 MP3 and the FLAC when I compared once.

So much for the new enlightened Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where else would you be able to make a deal with the government to shut down a private company that follows local laws? Of course it's not bribery if all you are giving in exchange is favorable trading regulations and a chance at WTO membership.

Re:Asshats

[kentrel]

And if the RIAA does not see a corresponding increase in their music sales, will they then realize that "stealing" is not the problem, but rather a lack of sanctioned paid music sites which offer the quality, convenience, unencumbered formats, and broad selection that piracy offers?

And if they do see a corresponding increase in their music sales, will you then realise the opposite?

Western civ, we hardly knew ye...

[pla]

Russia has agreed to close down AllofMP3.com, and any sites that 'permit illegal distribution of music and other copyright works.'

One of the most significant contributions to human rights in all of human history came from Hammurabi - The concept of a written code of laws, which everyone could know and which applied equally to all people, thus making "justice" less subject to the biases of the king / emperor / caliph / whatever. He may not have quite lived up to that ideal, but as a basis for all modern reasonably-fair legal systems, it forms a cornerstone on which we've built everything since.

AllOfMP3, whether the RIAA like it or not, operated within Russian law (or at least, they did so until this past September). Whether or not the new law closes the "loophole" (if you can call strong fair-use rights and lax copyright enforcement by-design a "loophole") will have to wait for the Russian authorities to make a case against someone.

Either way, to announce the closing of AllOfMP3 as practically the basis of an international trade agreement strikes me as the most capricious undermining of the concept of modern jurisprudence imagineable. This announcement effectively says "The rule of law does not apply to the king's friends, and its protections do not extend to the king's friends' enemies".

Buildings do not remain standing very long if you undermine their foundations. This should chill us all for a much, MUCH deeper reason than merely the loss of a way to get cheap music. I personally never even used AllOfMP3, and this scares the hell out of me. Imagine the same precedent applied, 20 years or so from now, to the US trying to get some economic favor from China...

How about court decision?

[SolitaryMan]

agreement between the U.S. and Russia in which Russia has agreed to close down AllofMP3.com [CC]

Excuse me, but when such decisions became governments' jurisdiction? Doesn't this require some investigation and then court decision? We are not even trying to _play_ democracy anymore, are we?

Re:How about court decision?

[SkoZombie]

Governments are no longer about the will of the people, but the will of the corporations.

Re:Asshats

[Ash Vince]

No, they will find someone else to blame instead.

Re:Asshats

[linuxci]

These sites are robbing the artists and companies of the revenue they are entitled to. Because they don't get this, they raise prices to cover what they lose...and so the spiral continues upward.
If you bothered to buy the music from real stores (online, or at a shop), then maybe we'd be seeing some cheaper prices for CD's etcIt's been said many times but I might as well repeat it back before most people had internet access then buying on CD, tape, etc was the only real option. Effectively at least one person in a group of friends had to buy the CD, but as CD often had more benefits than tape then people would often still buy their own.

So back then more people had to buy a CD if they wanted music but did the price ever go down? NO! What people forget is money doesn't magically appear, if someone has no money then them downloading 10,000 illegal tracks online doesn't mean any loss of revenue as they wouldn't be able to purchase the songs legit. Most people tend to be honest when they can and tend to support things that they like, so if the RIAA embraced a legal store on the AllOfMP3 model then it'd be popular as it would provide convenience. People are paying for AllOfMP3.com right now (when they could get it for free on P2P), a similarly priced legit store would make a fortune for the RIAA.

Just like Aljazeera

[WindBourne]

What amazes me is that allofmp3 is being shutdown due to selling to Americans. It is not that they are selling "illegal" or cheap music.

This is akin to American Gov's interest in Aljazeera. Roughly, they come down hard on it whenever they put Al Qaeda info on the English side. Interestingly, they do not mind if the info is on the main arabic site. I have seen what appears to be OBL tapes on the Arabic site, but once it is translated into English, then it gets stopped.

Re:Asshats

[estarriol]

and by now everyone except the UK is pissed of with how the US brings immense problems to the world, without having the slightest idea how to solve them.Speaking from and as part of the UK, I can assure you that the majority of the UK is extremely pissed off with US foreign policy, and the weakness of our own administrators who go along with it. This is most certainly not our finest hour.

Re:Asshats

[MostAwesomeDude]

Why would the RIAA, a cartel, lower prices?

Re:Asshats

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

First off, at the end of the day AllofMP3 was not giving artists and production / media companies their required due, so what they were doing was immoral, if technically legal at the time. No matter how you cut it, these goods and services have a value set by the vendor; if the market doesn't want to pay the price demanded, the market can simply not purchase them. It doesn't give people laissez-faire to take other people's work without paying for it. Before I get jumped on by the million-boot slashdot hive mind, I am completely opposed to the RIAA and MPAA and thier ilk, and think they are dinosaurs that should be expunged from the bodies social and politic.

Secondly, the US has vast amounts of wealth, which few other groups have. This is the reason for the "asslicking". How long the US will continue to be comparatively wealthy is another question entirely. Once the greenback stops being the de facto currency of global trade, it will decrease in value sharply, and US spending power with it. The natural inheritor of that throne is the euro; not only is it based in a group of stable democracies with no expansionist ideals, the EU market is what, double or triple the size of the US. Also you have to factor in enrmous foreign debt and a looming housing price collapse. What I do strongly object to is the US tying IP laws to deals for trade with third world nations, thus denying these nations the very means by which the US became so powerful (ignoring IP laws).

Iraq is a nasty snarl up, but to be honest you can lay the blame for that at the feet of Winston Churchill when he drew the lines on the map that bundled a group of unrelated cultures into one single country - fairly typical English ignorance in their colonial matters, I have to say. The most recent debacle involving the US is not going to end well.

This is a bit rambling, but the upshot of my post is, if you don't like the price, don't buy it. Its not like theres a steep barrier to entry. Buy a guitar. If you want to get worldwide audiences with your music and maybe get rich, into bed with the *AA you climb. Or set up your own one.

Oh, well

[Petrushka]

Oh, well. Back to P2P I guess. Shame. It was nice being legal.

AoMP3 *did* pay

[DrYak]

As I understood it, the artists never earned a penny from sales through this site

AllofMP3.com did pay money to the local state copyright licensing organisation, as required by Russian law.
(Per Russian law, if you want to broadcast music, all you have to do is to pay that organisation. Which will, in turn take care of sending the money were it's due).
The problem is not at the level of AllofMp3.com. The problem is in the next step : that organisation then in turn paid the money only to local band and other cultural events.
That's because, as other /. pointed in this thread, the western artists aren't registered at the Russian copyright organisation. Neither are there arrangement between the Russian organisation and foreign counterparts.

By shutting down the AllOfMP3.com site, the USA doesn't solve the root problem. They only hide one of the most visible manifestation of the phenomenon.
Nothing technically forbids another company to set up a similar service elsewere (say, a website that sells audio albums in FLAC DRM-less format, and uses international bank-2-bank money transfers as payment). As long as they follow Russian law and pay the money they're supposed to pay to the local copyright company, they won't be illegal.

The real solution would be to find an arrangement between western artists and Russia. But that's highly unlikely, mostly because those artist have signed exclusive rights with the western companies. There for the only possible arrangement is between Russian an western companies. And that's something Russia doesn't want because probably the **AA, IFPI, etc. are going to ask for way too much money and nothing will be left for local projects. That's something Russia want to avoid. Therefor the current solution is what they find best as a way to earn an entry to the WTO.

Be sure to see more AllOfMP3.com clones to appear and go unharmed once the Russia has secured its place within the WTO.

(The Wikipedia article has more detailed informations about the problem)

Re:Asshats

[xtracto]

First off, at the end of the day AllofMP3 was not giving artists and production / media companies their required due, so what they were doing was immoral, if technically legal at the time.
Allof MP3 offered to pay royalties. All anyone had to do was fill out a form. The **AAs refused to deal with them,

The Russian Organization on Collective Management of Rights of Authors and Other Rightholders in Multimedia, Digital Networks & Visual Arts (ROMS) is the Russian equivalent to RIAA. Until September 1st 2006 the fact that Allofmp3 site payed the requird fees for the distribution of the intellectual property to this organization made the AllOfMp3 distribution legal. It did not made the "reception" of such intellectual property legal on your country but what they were doing was completely legal and moral in their country.

It is as simple as selling mariguana in the Netherlands. It is legal and moral to do it there, and in contrast it is illegal and immoral to sell it on the USA. It is legal to publish DIY methods for mariguana production while in other countries might not be the case.

Now, I do not know if *after* the amendment (see the link) the allofmp3 current practices became illegal, that would need to be tested in A RUSSIAN COURT. I hope it is tried there, and I hope Allofmp3 win. However, we will have to see that int he following months.

Hope this helps.

Re:Asshats

[1u3hr]

The *AAs have the right to refuse to deal with them, or any vendor they like. That doesn't give vendors the right to go ahead and sell their music anyway.

Under Russian law there is a compulsory licensing; i.e., a fixed rate mediated by a copyright bureau that collects from broadcasters and publishers and disburses payments. Something similar operates in many countries for radio broadcast rights, it's not a "communist" idea, just in case you were thinking that. Of course, if a rights owner and a publisher make their own contract, that will take precedence.

Re:Asshats

[antonyb]

And your weak link is that, if they were operating legally with respect to the laws that governed them, whether or not the original vendors received their "required" due is irrelevant (it strikes me that, in their case, legally, that due wasn't required).

Maybe you consider they were acting immorally; they obviously didn't consider that a business imperative.

Maybe you consider the laws that govern them were at fault; again, that is not the fault of their business model.

ant.

Re:Asshats

[Znork]

"a similarly priced legit store would make a fortune for the RIAA."

Revenue for monopoly protected goods is maximized at a pricing point where a lot of consumers cannot afford the product. A similarly priced legit store may mean more sold tracks, but _less total revenue_ for each particular track. It might mean more money to smaller artists and composers, it might mean more diffrentiated music, it might benefit consumers, but it would not benefit the *AA, so you're not going to get that until the *AA are eradicated.

Re:Asshats

[Tom]

These sites are robbing the artists and companies of the revenue they are entitled to.

Without entering into the moral argument - don't forget that the artists get about $0.50 from your $19.95 CD sale. Google for Courtney Love's article about who the real pirates are, and you'll stop living in the dream world that CD sales make artists rich. They make record company CEOs rich and that's about it.

Our rights to get robbed?

[Ilgaz]

Did allofmp3 pay a cent to artists getting downloaded? No RIAA , no DRM argument please. Lets say I downloaded David Gilmour album, did Mr. Gilmour get a cent?

So, our right to get robbed with a fake legit site and artists not getting anything at all is broken. Very sad!

Only thing allofmp3 has proven is: International users exist besides ~18 countries and they somehow pay for music they get. Yes, I am referencing iTunes store and "you can't buy anything at all, you are a thief!" attitude shown by Apple/RIAA/MPAA for years.

If you really hate RIAA and you love to pay for your music, http://www.magnatunes.com/ , 50% 50% share, quality music, FLAC, Creative Commons, no DRM.

That is what I do besides paying to Real Networks for "radiopass" broadband radio. Paying to a shadowy Russian site knowing the artists not getting anything just to have fake legal music isn't a right of me so I didn't lose anything.

Re:Asshats

[jez9999]

No, England didn't.

And the rest of the UK certainly hardly gave them a 'resounding' victory. Our electoral system did.

Re:Nothing unusual is happening here.

[Dunbal]

You can't just pass a law that says that any intellectual property that happens to come within your borders (no matter how it got there) is fair game to be bought, sold, and copied by anyone who likes without any compensation to the owners of the rights to those properties.

      Yes you can. It's called sovereignty. If you don't like it your options are a) destroy that country's government by beating their army with your army or b) convince that government through incentives and international agreements to modify or eliminate that law.

Re:Asshats

[danpsmith]

Why would the RIAA, a cartel, lower prices?

Because unlike most cartels, they don't have a stranglehold on supply anymore. The music is out there, and despite all their threats and attempts at litigation, P2P will continue forever if there's not a better business model to thwart piracy. It is in their best interest to stop having such a fix on pricing and back down from the hardass stance a little bit, as fixing pricing and being a hardass isn't going to stop people.

Re:Asshats

[Shaper_pmp]

"However, if you really want an idea of what Americans think of Bush Jr.'s presidency, you need look no further than the last election. Six months ago, only a handful of wishful thinkers thought that the Republicans might lose both the Senate and House."

Fair point... but it's too little, too late. When Bush is removed from power, or investigated and punished after leaving office, then the world will believe he wasn't acting in the names of most normal Americans.

Unfortunately, we all know he's going to sit out the rest of his term as a lame-duck president, nobody's going to impeach him and by the time he's out of power it'll all be "old news" that nobody wants to rake over again by investigating.

However, when someone has done quite as much as Bush and the Neocons have, supposedly in your names, mere apathetic inaction isn't enough. The American people have to either swiftly and pro-actively either make it clear that you disapprove of his actions, or be condemned to history as supporting him.

This is exactly why many people in the Middle East hate America so much - they either believe you[1] approve of everything your leaders do, or they realise you disagree but know you're too apathetic to actually oppose them.

I think I'd be pretty pissed off if my life was going to hell... and even though the American people disagreed they couldn't be bothered to oppose the guy doing it in their names.

[1] "You the people", or course, not you personally.

"OTOH, I don't see any evidence that the Dems have any clue as to what should be done instead. :("

That's the problem. The Neocons have romped across America (and the world) unopposed for six years, and the Democrats have been unable to do more than stand idly by, flapping their hands and going "Ooooh, deary me". Kind of links in with the whole "can't even be bothered to oppose him" part, above.

Re:Asshats

[shark72]

"People are paying for AllOfMP3.com right now (when they could get it for free on P2P), a similarly priced legit store would make a fortune for the RIAA."

I don't follow. Mechanicals alone are around $0.07 a track by law, and I think that the artist should get at least something. Even if the record label didn't pay the performers at all (perhaps using the common rationale that musicians should be doing it for the love of the art, and not financial reward), it's hard to make money selling tracks at $0.10 when your mechanicals might be more than that. When you sell for less than the cost of production, you can't make that back on volume.

It's clear that as a group, Slashdotters profess a greater knowledge of the supply/demand curve, production costs, and other grim realities of the recording industry, than the record industry itself. This raises the question: why don't you -- or anybody else reading this -- do just that? Start your own online record store, sign artists, pay for production and marketing, and sell albums for a buck each or ten cents a track, just like allofmp3. You said that the existing record companies would make a fortune doing that. Why not make that fortune yourself? The solution is quite clear as day to you -- I think you just need to take the initiative to make it happen.

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. 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? Do you think that Magnatunes are simply being greedy? Could they sell those albums for $1.00 each if they really wanted to?