Slashdot Mirror
Allofmp3 Restarts Business
An anonymous reader writes "With a pretty short message on their blog, Allofmp3 announced that they will resume their music store soon. According to a Russian court, their music store did not violate any copyright law in Russia, so there was no reason for them to keep it closed."
Ha! Silly Russians! In Capitalist America, copyright law violates YOU!
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
Russia has been flexing it's muscles lately in many fields, to re-establish itself as a power in the world. I would not be surprised if this is part of that muscle-stretching exercise.
Then again it could also just be a case of IP laws not synching up between Russia and elsewhere in the world.
I wonder if this is how foreign nations plan to break the U.S., by bootlegging our digital commodities and harming our most influential industry?
He-he http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/icbm/rt-2pmu. htm
HAHA!
There is a war going on for your mind.
Maybe finally the RIAA will realize that allofmp3's pricing scheme and business model works and proves that if you price it right and don't use DRM, people will readily pay for music even if it is available for free on P2P.
allofmp3 provided/provides:
A great rating/linking system - "People who bought this also bought...","Similar artists..." - Great way to get "the word" out on new music without any advertising costs whatsoever.
Convenience - No DRM, no "special" download app that tied you to Windows (even if just for downloading). (Yes, there was allTunes, but you could always just download using a normal old browser)
Selection - allofmp3's selection was better than any other online music store I've used, except possibly for iTMS, although due to the DRM I haven't touched iTMS since PyMusique/SharpMusique stopped working.
They also happened to have great prices, but I'd happily pay double the prices of what allofmp3 charged.
Rather than try and sue them out of business, the RIAA should instead drive them out of business the capitalist way - with some nice good competition. Offer the same selection, convenience, organization, and interface as allofmp3, and compromise prices between allofmp3's (admittedly too low) and the RIAA's (way too high for "impulse buys" of tracks/albums I'm not sure about.
While the per-track/per-album price of allofmp3 is much lower, many people (myself included) spend MUCH more money in total there because at allofmp3's prices, there is little risk to buying a whole album as an "impulse buy" when you came for just a single track. RIAA pricing encourages single-track purchasing (odd, since the RIAA is so desperate to encourage full-album purchases.)
Foreign oil companies are being given a hard time in Russia because the government feels aggrieved that Yeltsin sold them off for a song. What with the American missile system encrouching on Russia and Russian strategic bombers resuming routine patrols, I can't see this as anything other than a continuation of the Cold War. Without the software and entertainment industry America would be in deep shit and this is one easy way to pile on the pressure. It's understandable.
From the perspective of my decadent wired-in European basement headquarters you guys need to grow up. You've both got upsides and downsides but if you're going to change how things go you have to change yourself. And that's hard. Really, really, really hard. If I acted like some spoilt bully boy or street level gangster I'd get my ass slung in a can. Strutting around with black budget military systems and silk suited marketing spin doesn't make it better. Actually, that's even worse.
Bush and Vlad,
Sitting in a tree,
KISSING!
Yeah, well. Never said you had to like it.
...just changed names for a bit (to MP3sparks.com). I had a balance on AllofMP3, heard that 'sparks was a front, so I logged on using my 'MP3 ID and, sure enough, they'd "transferred" my balance. And guess what? Alltunes (their download tool) never stopped working either, and without me having to change a single setting.
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
Bored one day I was using Google to find a ringtone for a friend and happened to drop on AllOfMP3, (just clicking through the list as one does,) and was presented by a page from my ISP saying it was blocked. I found it a little disconcerting that my ISP is deciding who I can communicate with.
For a moment I thought it's no longer the net I grew up with.
As I wasn't particularly interested in finding the ringtone or going to AllOfMP3 anyway thought I'd alleviate my boredom by investigating how they'd done this. Turns out they've only poisoned their DNS. So if you get the correct IP address from somewhere else and stick it in your hosts file you can work around it.
So the net returned back to normal: identified censorship as an error and routed 'round it.
Whew!
threadeds blog
in Russia you can download everything legaly.
Tough call. Yeah, really tough call. So, move to Holland and keep your shell in
Why UNIX?
Everybody must be busy downloading MP3s!
I give each company I deal with a different email address so I know when they have sold my address to spammers. Shortly after allofmp3.com was being shut down for the first time, I started getting spam to the email address that I had given to allofmp3.com. Remember, that address was never given to anyone except allofmp3.com.
I guess they figured if they can't make money selling music that they don't have any rights to, then the would supplement their income by selling out their customers' email addresses to worthless spammers.
Pretty sad actually.
p.s. funny, but true coincidence... The capcha word for me to post this anonymously is "poacher"
Are you talking about how allofmp3 doesn't pay RIAA members or how RIAA members don't pay their artists?
this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice
It could be that allofmp3 was, in fact, not violating any Russian laws.
this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice
... oh my $DEITY there's just so many to ponder. In Soviet Russia... ...You don't play music, music plays you! ...You don't sell music, music sells you! ...You don't KABLAM
Ahhh, better now.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Wait, you're talking about the RIAA, right?
I actually do pay for my music (well okay, 98% of it, I download singles that I wouldn't otherwise buy the album to listen to, or will later get the album - no I don't do singles, waste of money..), but between these guys and RIA*/recording industry types, I know who I'd prefer to get rid of. They screw over artists, and these days it's very apparent that they're screwing over their customers too. They have no honour.
which is totally what she said
And how about them artists that leech the notes, chords, progressions, theory, and instruments of music? How about those lyrics that leech language? Should they be shut down too?
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
In Soviet Russia, MP3s DRM you!
It had to be said.
I get sick of seeing American leaders line up behind their President and put on the act of grave authority or dish out flying jackets at Camp David when they want something. They're bullying and two-faced hypocrites when they want to be. It's all big sticks and smooth talk. Anything to win. Sure, there's worse idiots around but c'mon. People can do better than that.
Technically it's frowned in if you smoke it in the streets. You are supposed to go to the Coffee Shops to smoke it.
America, Home of the Brave.
So, it's ok for big corporations to off shore things like manufacturing + tech support to cheaper countries.
But when another company takes advantages of its laws and it effects the company here. Oh noes!
So, you're essentially paying a pirate money, haha. You are fucking idiot!
I wonder if the RIAA has to compensate them for the loss of business due to the time their web site has been down.
No sig today...
Considering that Russia is now part of WTO, it will be interesting to see what will happen. Russia obeyed their law and agreements that we had with them. But will USA now take this to WTO and object to this? My guess is that USA will lose this appeal, and that will cause numerous other countries to allow other companies in on similar companies. Of course, this comes on top of the WTC looking at allowing Antigua and other countries that were denied off shore betting from USA.
In the end, this could pretty much negate all that W. tried to accomplish during his 8 years. That is the large American companies keep their copyrights under draconian conditions, and receive large royalties.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I created a fake address just for dealing with them. I expected it to get spam the day I signed up. It's not really a legit operation, so would you expect them to give a shit about your contact info, I mean come on, like what are you going to do, call customer service and complain? Ha...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
In Soviet Russia you own the RIAA....KABLAM.
No sig today...
As if that matters. They are violating the will of big corporations! Accordance with the law is for small people.
One irritating thing about Anonymous Cowards is that they are generally too lazy to just have a look for themselves, and post random gibberish that just bungs up the tubes.
So suggest you try any of Cybercity, Tele2, Telia, and TDC and thereby determine the validity of the original post for yourself.
There again, if I wasn't so bored I wouldn't have wasted the time doing the rounds of checking the various ISPs myself and replying.
threadeds blog
Haven't you noticed that the blog post date is August 31st?
The last time I checked, in this part of the world (I live in the Argentinian Banana Republic) was Monday, August 27th.
Funny, isn't it? I thought time travelling wasn't possible.
In Holland you can download music and films legally too. Only uploading is illegal.
If you want to violate Russian copyright law, you pretty much have to walk up to the artist and punch them directly in the mouth, and even then it's a pretty close legal call.
spoken like a person who's never created something. at least something worthwhile.
Ah yes... many years ago (about 10) I lived there. I was in a coffee-shop, enjoying a smoke, and then my phone rang and I had to go. I walked out on to the street, planning on finishing it quickly (there was only about 25% of it left anyway), when all of a sudden a cop walks up to me. Naturally, not being from Holland originally, I was a little concerned... That was, until he said, "You know, you're not supposed to smoke that in the street - when you finish that one, don't light another". Suffice to say, that is when I realised that Holland is truly the land of the blessed.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
I still blame any artist who makes the choice to make themselves dependent on the marketing machine rather than cutting out the middleman and producing and selling themselves. The trouble is that no matter how you go about it these days, the pirates are still going to eat you alive in the long run, which leads to the conclusion that many bands are beginning to arrive at: the only way to make a consistent paycheck anymore is to go on tour. It appears to be a throwback to the tradition of wandering minstels, but at least now people are no longer brainwashed into thinking music has substantial material value. It's deepest value has always been exclusively non-material and this is why great artists are attracted to it in the first place.
You know, actually, allofmp3 does pay royalties in Russia to ROMS (an agency setup under Russian law by the Russian government). The issue is that western companies do not recognize ROMS and instead 'demand' that Russian media companies deal with the equivalent of the Russian RIAA.
So what he is doing here is supporting an organization which is battling the influence exerted by the RIAA while legally distributing DRM free music.
Admittedly, there is a question of whether the amounts involved adequately compensate artists but, honestly, is not virtually any system better than what the RIAA promotes.
]{
Is that Allofmp3.com is able to operate because they take advantage of a compulsory licensing scheme. Using this scheme, they pay a fee for each song they "broadcast" to a central Russian copyright entity, and this entity is then responsible for dispensing those fees to the artists.
Meanwhile, the CRB and SoundExchange form an *identical* arrangement, yet people on Slashdot bitch and complain about how unjust this system is. Funny, that...
(BTW, that's not to say the new rates the CRB is proposing are anything but ridiculous. But to say the system itself is unjust, and then applaud allofmp3, is, to say the least, incredibly hypocritical).
..at least as of today. The note on the allofmp3 site is dated August 31.
No kidding! What a great analogy - this deserves to be modded as Insightful!
- dm - The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.
The big problem is that the amount paid to ROMS is incredibly small and has not been negotiated with the rights holders or artists. The standard US mechanical copyright rate paid to an *artist* (not the record label) is 9.1 cents per song, or 1.75 cents per minute (whichever is more). Allofmp3.com is able to sell content for less because they're ripping their content from commercial CDs (if you're lucky) and not paying the guys and girls who worked their butts off to make it.
The "we pay royalties to ROMS" claim is a smokescreen to hide the fact that allofmp3.com is not paying enough money to the creators to actually sustain their work. It's easy to dismiss the rights holders as "a bunch of rich musicians" who aren't earning a few extra million, but the cold reality is that most moderately successful recording artists find it incredibly hard to earn a decent living in a fickle and competitive industry.
Much as I don't like nuclear equipped Tupolev bombers returning to UK airspace, or being bent over a barrel with gas supply/pricing policies. I do kinda like the return of AllOfMP3 - like it a lot. Go go Putin, the bare chested, fly fishing, knife wielding, fighter jet co-pilot savior of digital music as the good lord always intended.
It is not immoral to create the human species - with or without ceremony, Samuel Clemens.
What artists? Artists get two revenue streams from the record labels: Jack, and Shit. If we're talking profit sharing from downloaded music, they now pay a New Technology Fee or whatever steaming pile the label types into the profit sheet, and get even less than Jack and Shit.
No one is punching any artist in the mouth. We are punching the labels in the mouth.
Artists make money on performances, live performances, as that is the last bastion of revenue that the labels can't steal via their accountants.
Let a million punches smash into the faces of the labels. Forever.
This is good news. KSU wants us to use something called Ruckus to download music... Only thing is, the files don't work on 98% of audio players. Doesn't work on billy's iPod? Well, then, that's pretty damned worthless...
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
BOOYAH!
Let me complement it:
"... but the cold reality is that most moderately successful recording artists find it incredibly hard to earn a decent living in a fickle and competitive industry..." >> even for selling legal CD's in music stores.
At least here in Brazil, artists used to say they only earn real money by doing shows and tours across the country/world.
ilex paraguariensis for all
/. are the kings of truthiness. allofmp3 violates copyright law. They sell songs without the permission of the copyright holders. It doesn't matter that they offered to pay anything, or that they are following Russian law. What they are doing is still unethical because the have not come to an agreement with the copyright holders. If they rewrote gpl arbitrarily and started selling closed software based on OSS, the response here would be a lot different.
I too am happy to see that they prevailed. All that remains now is to see what payment options will be made available to customers. The site is of no use to anybody if you cannot refill you balance to buy more music. Logic would say that if they have been cleared of any wrongdoing, then the CC companies (and even PayPal/Google Checkout) no longer have a leg to stand on to deny servicing the site's customers. I am not holding my breath though.........
How can they get so much free music, in Russia?...
...the fluoridation of water. (see Dr Strangelove)
The big problem is that the amount paid to ROMS is incredibly small and has not been negotiated with the rights holders or artists.
Well that's an amusing argument, considering that the US *ALSO* has a statutory licensing law and that rate has also not been been negotiated with the rights holders or artists.
Oh wait, I forgot to echo back to you the the part about the amount paid being incredibly small. Oops, my bad. Well lets see, the royalty rate under US law for a company sending the identical MP3 file to someone, compared to the Russian rate is... accrding to my calculator.... hmmm lets see line up the decimal point there....
Ah there we go! It's a multiplier of about TWENTY difference in royalty rate!
WOW! That's a frigin huge difference in royalty rate!
Under Russian law AllOfMP3.com has to pay TWENTY TIMES MORE in royalty rate than Pandora.com had to pay in royalty rate under US law when they sent me the exact same MP3 file. Yep, that's right, the Russian royalty rate is vastly higher than the US royalty rate.
You are absolutely welcome to say that Russian royalty rates should be higher, but you cannot argue that there is anything wrong or illegitimate about the principle or general operation of that law. In legal principle and in fundamental aspects the Russian law is effectively identical to US law. There are differences in some details, but absolutely not in anything altering the basic legitamacy of that law.
Russian law is absolutely legitimate
The "we pay royalties to ROMS" claim is a smokescreen to hide the fact that allofmp3.com is not paying enough money to the creators to actually sustain their work.
Two points. First of all the RIAA refusing to accept the money and refusing to pass that money on to their artists... and prohibiting their artists from directly collecting their money themselves is a public relations and political ploy. It is a small price to pay for the wonderful chant that RIAA artists are not getting paid at all, and to back up their bogus claim that the law itself is illegitimate.
Secondly, I would fully welcome increasing the royalty rate in Russian law. It is fundamentally a legitamate and GOOD law, and yes it should direct more money to the artists. And the US law royalty should also be massivly increased to match the Russian rate... provided that some defective-by-design arbitrary clauses in US law were removed to match Russian law... for example the US law prohibits sending more than three songs from a single artist or more than two songs from a single album within a single hour. Crank up the royalty rates to pay artists more and get rid of the (US) arbitrary restrictions on the timing of sending songs.
Of course that is the LAST thing the RIAA wants. They don't care squat about how well their artists get paid. And in fact they aren't particularly thinking about what rate they are getting paid on it either. What they are in a frenzy over is that fact that the broader market effect would be to more open opportunities to INDIE musicians. The RIAA's very existence is founded upon artists *NEEDING* to sign their soul away in an RIAA Label contract. If new artists find a broader marketplace more conducive to indie survival, the RIAA's influx of new lifeblood starts drying up. It doesn't matter what royalty rate the RIAA picks up in the short term if they lose control and indie artists are no longer forced to sign up with the RIAA middleman.
A good statutory license means that the RIAA (and their artists) get paid their due, but that the RIAA lose their VETO power to shut down any music enterprise at will, lose the power to extort other companies into compliance.
It's easy to dismiss the rights holders as "a bunch of rich musicians" who aren't earning a few extra million
Actually I'm thinking more in terms of "lots of the poor musicians should be making more tens of thousands each... a living wage.
An indie artist could be reasonably pleas
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Unlike the DRM laden crap I got that committed suicide the moment the shop closed.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Is it that hard to make the subject reflect the actual state of affairs? They haven't restarted allofmp3.com yet. All they've said is "The service will be resumed in the foreseeable future."
Yes, the Dutch police.
Source: Harry EnfieldAmerica, Home of the Brave.
You know, that's precisely what bugs me about globalization:
When a hightech company ships 20'000 jobs to Heyderabad, or a huge consultancy moves it's headquarters to the Bahamas in order to shave taxes, then that's considered a smart move and a savvy business decision.
When I, under the same logic, buy a tune from a foreign web site that's supposed to be a criminal act and fraudulent.
Mind you, I'm not complaining about outsourcing jobs, or making smart tax decisions (overall, the cake is probably growing for all due to globalisation), but this is one of the most blatantly hypocritical attitudes by big business and they should hang their head in shame for that.
(Actually tarring and feathering a few of those corporate bozos would be even more fun then lambasting them; but I digress).
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Isn't Pandora an internet radio station? If so, I'm not sure why you're comparing their royalty rates to purchase rates. The primary issue with Allofmp3.com is that they haven't actually licensed the product they're selling. They're bootlegging CDs and selling digital copies internationally. It would be much like photocopying the latest Harry Potter book, selling it for a couple of dollars and making a token payment to some "licensing authority" in an attempt to legitimize what you're doing.
One of the links in my post above failed to show up:
search?q=ROMS+royalty+percent+russian turns up this link which says:
As stipulated in our licensing agreement with the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society (ROMS), the company [AllOfMP3.com] pays 15 percent of its gross revenue. The company also pays 25 percent of gross revenue to the Collective Management of Copyright with Respect to the Use of Musical Works in Interactive Regime (FAIR).
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Of course the music labels don't want to accept their money, any more than you would want to accept the money of someone that had an affair with your spouse - offering money for a stolen "service" doesn't make it right.
But how would you fund an AllOfMP3 account now that using Visa etc. does not work?