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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."
Its obvious why they haven't paid a dime:
Russians pay in Rubles and kopeks.
liqbase
Yeah. Good luck with that.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
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
PLEASE DEAR GOD let this become a fight between the RIAA and the Russian Mafia.
Russian Mafia FTW!
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.
You'd have thought that allofmp3.com would just hand over the dime.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
AllofMP3.com pays the correct proceeds under Russian law to ROMS (Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems a.k.a. similar to the RIAA in Russia). ROMS is a non-for-profit organization that handles all copyright payment transactions in Russia, including collecting for foreign interests. All the money is held until it is requested by the appropriate parties with proof that they are the correct owners of the copyrighted material. All requests can also be retro-active requests for payment, (i.e. if you have been the owner of the work, and have not received your cut for the last 4 years, you simply request that you receive your payments for the entire time that you have been the copyright owner).
The RIAA knows this and so do their member groups. The issue is that they do not want to request the payment because they think doing so will give legitimacy to places like AllofMP3.com who are following the Russian rules to copyright payments. The RIAA does not like the Russian rules and seeks to circumvent them. By not requesting for their payments they are trying to use that as a means for the lawsuit(s) you are now witness to over the last few months against different Russian sites.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Even if they manage to shut allofmp3.com down, they'll be playing a Russian version of whack-'em-all for a while. Check out its sister site alltunes.com - you should even be able to transfer your credits from allofmp3 there.
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
Since when does German law apply in other countries?
Since when does French law apply in other countries?
I'm pretty sure I could come up with a few other things as well. Oh yes, in this particular case it might be since Russia started to join the WTO.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
It matters when US citizens are members of this service. I have one friend who is a member and even she thought it was a bit fishy... but she was paying $10 or $15/month for unlimited downloading. I assume this is how they are going after the company, because they provide their service in the United States.
And slightly off topic, our legal system does a pretty good job. The only change I would like to see done is to make plantiffs pay all court costs/legal fees if the defendant was proven to be non guilty in a civil matter. That would fix so many problems.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
And how does RIAA expect to enforce New York's court order (if such would be obtained) on Russian soil?
~he companies claim the site sells millions of songs without paying them 'a dime'
;)
bullshit i remember paying a dime for 10-100 songs from allfomp3
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?
Why is the RIAA trying to sue someone in another country. The US has no jurisdiction.
You're right, but AllOfMP3 won't show up or if they do will lose, so RIAA will win in court. With this victory, they will get the Bush administration to lean more heavily on Russia to "do something".
Please America, don't try to bring your horrible legal system to the rest of the world. We don't want it.
I'm American and I admit we are too litigious and everything here is always somebody else's fault. However, the more I pay attention, the less convinced I am that overall the American legal system is the worst. One the negative side, yes, you can sue over anything and maybe win. On the positive side, if you do something bad (ie. kill someone), you may actually pay a high price for it. Consider the following:
1) A few years ago Japan tried and convicted some US Marines for raping a schoolgirl. The ringleader got a "very long sentence" (those are the exact words of the account I read) of 7 years. In the US he could have been sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime. I'm sorry, but 7 years is not a "long time".
2) Did you know that according to the Brazilian constitution you can't be sentenced to more 30 years in jail for anything? Serial killers rejoice. In fact, Brazilian sentences are never more than 29 years because to give someone 30 involves an automatic appeal. There's no death penalty in Brazil either, although strangely enough the cops have an awful lot of leeway to shoot you and kill you prior to you getting arrested should you flee or resist.
3) Italians in particular (although the majority of the EU has the same problem) actually feel sorry for criminals. One of the Achille Lauro hijackers got a 30 year sentence and was put on work release from which he ran away. He was eventually recaptured, but it says a lot about Italian "justice" that the guy got on work release to begin with. The weak Italian justice system is why when the follow-up bombers failed in London a few years ago that one of them fled to Italy and fought vigorously to be tried there because he knew the Italians would feel sorry for him and he'd get out of jail eventually.
The one positive thing about the American legal system is that if you do something bad and you get convicted, you'll pay for it. It may be the death penalty, it may be life in prison without parole, or a truly long sentence, but we won't feel sorry for you and put you on work release while you're doing your time.
A: U.S. courts have juridiction in cases where the party to be sued has "such miminal contacts" that allowing the suit would not violate traditional notions of fairness and justice. The US courts have allowed jurisdiction when it is clear that the offending company has intentionally directed buisiness into, and solicited buisiness from, the United States and her citizens.
Here allofmp3 has all the hallmarks of past cases which have succeeded - site is in english, offers prices in U.S. dollars, advertises on U.S. websites and media.
Since their acts take effect here, laws which govern the effect will rule.
Q: How will they enforce the ruling?
There are several ways - the RIAA companies could freeze allofmp3's funds with a court order, and call upon Russia (through the effect of U.S. - Russia treaties) to supply the amount demanded by the judgement. They can asses the value of AllofMp3's domain name and seek to have it sold off to cover the damages. U.S. credit cards and pay-pal could be ordered to cease making payments to allofmp.
Q: How will they get these guys in custody? Russia won't hand them over.
This is a civil case - jail time is not on the table.
-GiH
I buy there because its DRM free and I can get it in any file format I want. If they charged 50 cents a track, I'd still buy there ($1 is ridiculous for lossy audio, I'd pay it for FLAC files, but not for OGGs or MP3s). Its about the DRM for me.
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?
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
The faqs at allofmp3 seem to detail and debate the various laws involved..
Link to FAQ
You can be sure that the contract (if there is one) is under the jurisdiction of russian law, not US law. Like I said in my post, if US citizens are involved, then they are liable, perhaps, but the russian entity is not. As to the slightly off topic... There is no good legal system. The US system is so backlogged and so top heavy its insane. Remember that case where the women spilled hot coffee on herself and sued (I think it was mcdonalds), so now they have to put warnings on their coffee cups that say hot. How stupid are you if you don't know that coffee is hot. Come on. I think that the criminal system is reasonable, however, your civil system is so out of wack. Everybody is looking for a free lunch at the expense of Corporate America. Geeze, look at all those guys who sit on patents, and then wait for somebody to invent something similar and then take them to court. Reality is, it's often cheaper to settle rather than go through the courts and hold up business. I agree with the plaintiff paying all court and legal costs, that would help a lot. Better yet, make the law firms pay for it. That would solve the problems for sure.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
Didn't this story already seal AllOfMP3.com's fate? Russia agreed to shut them down by mid 2007. So, is this just about squeezing a few bucks out of them before they die?
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Ok, all three of your arguments fall under "Sovereign states get to determine their own internal affairs. They don't have to do what any other state tells them if they don't want." Technically, true. Realistically, not so much. Sure, independent states can do what they want. But if you piss off the powers that be, you don't get to play in the global economy, import goods, export goods, etc., depending on how pissed they get. That's what Russia joining the WTO has to do with this: the WTO (which is pretty much an economic stick swung about by the wealthy nations) is likely to tell Russia they must crack down on "intellectual property infringement" if they want to play ball with the big boys. Russia wants to join the WTO, b/c then they get to be one of the big boys manipulating the world economy for their own advantage, rather than being one of the ones manipulated. I believe the term is realpolitik.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
BTW, any metaphors comparing made-up, fictional, so-called intellectual property to real, defendable, actual property will fail. Every time.
Does the site have a presence in the US? Well? If it doesn't then they can get bent.
It's called "international copyright law". In parciular, the Berne Convention, was not developed in the US, but was an international effort. Russia is a member of the Berne Union. The RIAA, hate them as I may, clearly has grounds to file a suit here.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
I hope you at least see how wrong that is.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Your example is like me mail ordering an ounce from Amsterdam and the US government busting the guy in Amsterdam.
-peace
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
Don't bring McDonalds suit into this discussion. It actually had a lot more merit than this one does. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's_Hot_Coffee
$signature =~ s/$signature//;
Because the RIAA thinks their legal rights are being violated.
The US, as do most soveriegn nations, exercises jurisdiction over violations of its laws wherever in the universe they may occur. It may, by its own law, restrict the territorial applicability of its laws, and, of course, successful litigants may have trouble executing judgements against foreign actors, but that's a different issue.
Anyhow, Americans didn't start this, we're just copying the British (not the last paragraph of the article.)
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.
The RIAA is for the most part an association of Corporations.
... nevermind, you have probably seen that movie.
These corporations have an unlimited lifespan, and the legal purpose of a Corporation is solely to make money.
But in our wisdom, our courts decided more than a century ago, that this Corporate Entity is a legal person: with all the legal benefits of person, but apparently little punishment for wrongdoings.
This eternal entity obviously wants to "own" "copyrights" forever, for profit (its legal mandate). So the behavior of the RIAA and MPAA is not surprising.
If you had robots with rights that could outlive humans, you may have some of the same ownership problems as those created with this artificial corporation person creation.
When a corporation is made of of all robot employees
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
if the RIAA companies never ceded the right to contract their copyrights to this orginization, will U.S. courts respect the establishment of a foreign orginization given that power by law?
They damn well better!
AllOfMP3.com operates under a statutory license in Russian law.
Pandora.com operates under a statutory license in American law.
Russian law says that AllOfMP3.com is licensed to send music by any artist (including American artists) even if the copyright holder explicitly wants to forbid it.
American law says that Pandora.com is licensed to send music by any artist (including Russian artists) even if the copyright holder explicitly wants to forbid it.
Russian law says that AllOfMP3.com may send that music in any format they wish, obviously including MP3 format.
American law says that Pandora.com is may send music in any format they wish, obviously including MP3 format. (Note: You can find these MP3 files in your TEMP folder with no file extension.)
Russian law says that AllOfMP3.com must pay a government-set royalty rate to ROMS, a collection body that then distributes those payments to copyright holders.
American law says that Pandora.com must pay a government-set royalty rate to CARP, a collection body that then distributes those payments to copyright holders.
This Russian law is operating under the exact same legal principals as US law. The RIAA is lying out their ass when they bitch and scream that there is something wrong with sending stuff without permission from the copyright holder.... virtually every country on earth has statutory licensing in their law. RIAA is lying out their ass when they bitch and scream that there is something fundamentally wrong with Russian law.
Oh, by the way.... the statutory licensing fees imposed on AllOfMP3.com by Russian law are about 20 TIMES HIGHER than the licensing fees imposed on Pandora.com by US law.
But here's the really obnoxious part... the RIAA bullshit about AllOfMP3.com being evil Pirates Pirates Pirates because RIAA artists are "not getting paid a dime". It's true that American artists signed with the RIAA are not getting a singe dime out of AllOfMP3.com sales. AllOfMP3.com is paying the royalty fees to ROMS... so why aren't US RIAA signed artists getting paid? Because the RIAA refuses to accept the payments from ROMS. And the RIAA contracts require artists to sign over the copyrights to the RIAA member companies. The RIAA contracts say that only the RIAA companies can accept royalty payments for the work, and that the RIAA companies then pass on the artists share of teh payments to them. The RIAA contracts FORBID the artists to directly go and collect any payments themselves.
So teh RIAA is deliberately screwing over their own artists and is refusing to accept these payments and pass them on to their artists.... because that way they can manufacture this bullshit argument that AllOfMP3.com is evil and illegitimate and illegal and Pirates Pirates Pirates because RIAA-signed artists are not getting paid.
The RIAA's primary tactic is to simply chant the word "Pirate" over and over and over again until they get what they want... even if they have to LIE OUT THEIR ASS and SCREW OVER THEIR OWN ARTISTS in the process.
(Note that I am not yelling at you, I am yelling about the RIAA and at the RIAA.)
A US judge might rule on some of the complicated cross-national issues involved here, but I seriously doubt that any US judge would be stupid enough to rule that AllOfMP3.com was itself illegitmate or that Russian law was itself illegitmate. To do so would be a direct blow against US law operating on the exact same principals and a calamity for US radio stations and thousands of other US businesses operating under US law statutory licenses.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
She wasn't a member of allofmp3 then, they don't do unlimited downloading for a set fee any more than itunes does.
I actually agree with this. America would be lots better if Bush and the movie/recording industry execs were forced into Russia (certainly a better use for them than they're doing now). One tip, though- I write like that when I'm up at 2AM in the morning after a busy day. Maybe it would help to wait until you're more refreshed (a cup of coffee/tea/caffiene drink would work too) to post here. Your opinion is appreciated, though.
OSx86 FTW
> What I never understood is why anybody would use this service.
Why? Because when you buy it, you have it legaly (as far as I understand Anglo-Saxon laws). RIAA can not sue you. They can sue AllOfMP3 (which they try), but it'll be hard, because they operate legaly in russia. Why it is legal? I give you brief explanatory how it work in my country (Czech Rep.), which have similar laws like Russian.
We had organization called OSA which stand in for all musicans (unless they opt out). And when you operate radio you give them list of songs you play and money according to their price list and OSA distribute money (do not ask me how and to who). You pay OSA for playing radio on public place like your market, pub... You pay them for each blank CD you sell (owner of the blank CD can record there some music, so you should pay in advance). You pay for selling copy machine, printer (new owner can make copy of some copyrighted text). You pay for lots of things. And it is not penny - for blank CD it can be 30% of its price. In exchange our law do not criminalize you from downloading, copiing CD, books, movies. If somebody publish it (even on P2P) you can downloaded. But you have to have right to publish it (or you-the publisher are criminalized). Often you have no right to publish it (P2P), but you can make agreement and pay OSA whatever you and they agree (like 0.000000000001$ per song) and it is OK according to law. Well OSA then should pay to holder of rights. But it is blackbox. Nobody knows what they do with that money. And similar situation is in Russian with AllOfMP3. Owner of right (or RIAA) should care. They should sue organization which allow it (like OSA in Czech). Or they should sue country for bad law. But they rather sue seller like AllOfMP3 becouse it is easier.
....To what degree does AllofMp3 conduct business within the United States.....
Does a transaction that goes across an International border take place in the place where the buyer is or the seller? For sales taxes it is the buyer's place. If someone from Oregon where there is no sales buys something from California, there is no tax due. If someone in California buys something in Oregon, the buyer is supposed to pay sales tax or use tax to California. In practice nobody pays either place except for things like cars that must be registered.
Is the Allofmp3 situation not pretty much the same? Does the RIAA have a right to collect a "tax" on buyers of material from Allofmp3? Is it illegal to buy such material and have it shipped (by wire) to the US? If the material were a physical good, would US Customs confiscate it, like the did some German sausage my parents tried to bring us?
All theory is gray