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RIAA Members Sue Allofmp3.com Over Infringement
fair_n_hite_451 writes "To the surprise of no one, several members of the RIAA have filed suit against MediaServices, the operators of Allofmp3.com. The suit was filed for Wednesday, primarily by Arista Records LLC, Warner Bros. Records Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and UMG Recordings. The language of the litigation was very confrontational; The companies claim the site sells millions of songs without paying them 'a dime'. 'The defendant's entire business ... amounts to nothing more than a massive infringement of plaintiffs' exclusive rights under the Copyright Act and New York law.' AllofMp3 has always maintained that a Russian licensing group makes their business legitimate, while the RIAA here claims the organization has no authority to make such a deal."
Check the organization that allofmp3.com claims has given them the right to do what they are doing. If the organization is legitimate, and has doucmented everything correctly, then the RIAA hasn't a leg to stand on.
If the organization is not legitimate or doesn't have the proper paperwork, the RIAA wins.
Instead of litigating this to death, just show the damn paperwork and prove your point.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
... because AllofMP3 does what Napster and Rhapsody and iTunes cannot: offer a comprehensive music catalog at reasonable rates. To wit: if you really like jazz, this is the only place to find nontrivial Art (or Chet!) Baker, Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich, Charles Mingus, or Dave Brubeck.
Is it illegal according to US law? Sure. Do I care? No. This is the modern equivalent of civil disobedience. Call it corporate disobedience: the ad infinitum extensions of copyright protection for works of long-dead artists, as a benefit to corporate parents, says the balance of power is most assuredly in the hands of the sociopathic corporate citizenry and not the voting public. The weapons I have against Big Business are economic, and this is just the first of many conflicts to come, all along the same lines.
Just mull it over. Corporate disobedience might be the only option now.
-BA
Why is the RIAA trying to sue someone in another country. The US has no jurisdiction.
Does the site have a presence in the US? Well? If it doesn't then they can get bent. Now they can go after all the people who paid the site to download songs, but not the site in Russia.
Please America, don't try to bring your horrible legal system to the rest of the world. We don't want it.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
In other words, between the Hollywood mafia and the Russian mafia?
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
Now this is, admittedly, hearsay, and I've not gone to look for collaboration:
What I'd heard is that allofmp3 PAYS royalties, but the American firms refuse them, as they're "not enough". So when they accuse them of not paying a dime, it's because they won't accept the payments, more than anything else... Can anyone confirm/deny this?
If I understood the AllofMP3.com situation correctly, they are paying the Russian equivalent of the RIAA licensing and royalty fees for the songs they sell, under some obscure loophole of Russian law that allows them to classify their website alongside radio stations and use the much cheaper fees for broadcast licenses. If this is true, then they are violating no Russian law.
But, I also thought that it is illegal for people to import into the United States products that are illegal here, even if said products are legal in the originating country (like bringing weed back from Amsterdam with you... they won't let it in the country, and you'll probably be arrested for possession). If that's the case, then wouldn't the US customers of AllofMP3.com be in violation of these importation laws by buying the songs in Russia (where it's legal) and then importing them to the United States (where it's illegal)? Why would the RIAA not use this vector for attack on AllofMP3, and bring down Capone on tax evasion?
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Actually, it wouldn't, at least to me. VISA and MasterCard aren't just US companies; they're international alliances. So taking the action of yanking privileges for a service that's legal in Russia just because it's illegal in the United States (supposedly; there's still no court decision on that) would deny customers the opportunity to use their legally-obtained card to purchase legal goods in countries where the service is legal. Suppose Saudi Arabia demands that, because pornography is illegal in Saudi Arabia, nobody be allowed to purchase pornography using their VISA or MasterCard. VISA and MasterCard have to not give the opportunity to process their cards to pornography merchants in Saudi Arabia because they're conducting an illegal activity there, but they do not need to take away that permission from US pornography merchants, because pornography is legal in the US. Allofmp3 is currently legal in Russia. I can't see how an organization can say to Russians that they can't use their card to purchase legal goods. MasterCard is currently a non-profit org, at least in the US. It's hard to justify that action as a non-profit.
allofmp3 pays royalties. The RIAA will receive royalties from the organization that allofmp3 pays if they ask. They refuse to ask because they do not like the compulsory licensing laws in Russia. To ask for the money will imply consent, so they sue the law abiding citizens (allofmp3) because they do not like the Russian laws. There is nothing wrong with compulsory licensing. There is compulsory licensing in the US as well, but the terms are favorable to the RIAA so they accept it and take their money when it is paid. So the problem isn't that they object to how things are handled. They object to the level of payment they receive. And they are suing a lawfully operating company because of a complaint about a government's actions.
Regardless of what one things about anything else they do, suing a company that is not in violation of any law because of annoyance over a government's policies is just wrong.
Learn to love Alaska
Because Apple is an incredibly wealthy corporation which will probably never be called to account and you are just a consumer who can easily be threatened with expensive legal action.