“A Russian Web site that lets visitors download albums for less than $1 is a smash hit with music fans – but not with U.S. trade and music industry officials,” Alex Nicholson reports for The Associated Press. “According to a report by the Britain-based IXN data company, which compared traffic volumes on Web sites offering music downloads, Allofmp3 leapfrogged U.S. online music store Napster over the first half of the year to make it the second-most popular music site in the U.K. after iTunes.”
“But popular or not, the site is already under criminal investigation by Russian prosecutors and has been picked out by the U.S. Trade Representatives Office as an example of Russia’s bad record on tackling piracy. Allofmp3, officials say, is jeopardizing Russia’s WTO [World Trade Organization] bid as it seeks to reach an accession deal with the United States,” Nicholson reports. “The site warns users to check to make sure they are not violating the laws of their country before downloading songs and insists its mother company – MediaServices – is fully licensed to operate under Russian law. ‘MediaServices pays license fees for all materials downloaded from the site subject to the Law of the Russian Federation,’ the site says, citing an agreement with the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society.”
That group, which goes by the acronym ROMS, says it collects and distributes royalties for online use of copyrighted music. ROMS claims that under Russian copyright law, it does not need permission from copyright holders to license the sale of music on the Internet. ‘What can I say – this has to be decided by a court and no court has said this is illegitimate,’ ROMS general director Oleg Nezus told The Associated Press. ‘… Believe me – I’m a lawyer, you have to understand the law as a whole.’ But Igor Pozhitkov of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents Western recording giants such as Universal, Sony and EMI, says Nezus is reading the law selectively,” Nicholson reports.
“According to IFPI’s lawyers, agencies such as ROMS do not need to seek permission from rightholders if they are licensing the broadcasting, performance or transmission of works by cable – but they do if it concerns their sale over the Internet. ‘They (ROMS managers) are using this as a money machine,’ Pozhitkov said. ‘Hopefully they will defend it for a while and then disappear.’ Allofmp3 provides no phone numbers and questions e-mailed to addresses listed on the site went unanswered,” Nicholson reports.
Full article here.
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In Soviet Russia… you own the music.
In Capitalistic America… music owns you.
(a twist on the “in Soviet Russia” jokes)
Ohhhh……..Those Russians.
Goverment recently urged restaurants to serve less food , it is obvious that Obesity is probably more than just a problem in america.
What will obese people do?
They will try to buy Healthier food.
and they will start exercizing more. Which means they will buy more Shoes.
As far as i can tell , Future is all about healthy food and shoes.
Nike is to big, however any small cap stock should do well.
Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
Hurry to Yuri’s for reasonably priced western music.
Act now and when you buy 4 freshly burned factory CD’s you get a free bottle of Vodka off back of truck that is parked in alley!
Hmmmm?? I just don’t feel comfortable giving my credit card information to a russian site that is ripping off music labels. I am sure they are honest, I mean, look at their track record!!!
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Now if I could pay thru pay pal??????? That might be a different option.
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N.
I am not, and never have been, member of Communist Party.
“Now if I could pay thru pay pal??????? That might be a different option”
Until very recently there were some creative ways to do just that.
You don’t know the history of the Communist party. And, neither do I.
-Tom
Don’t know about you, good deal or not, I don’t trust giving credit card info to Russian business. The land of credit card fraud.
Can anyone check to see if “Back in the USSR” is available on that site?
In Russia the legal retail price for a cd is around $2.00 to $3.00 per unit. Allofmp3 is charging around $2.00 for a cd quality product. They collect royalties and pay to ROMS. If the record companies refuse to take the money collected on their behalf that’s their business.
For the record, the company is no longer under investigation as the relevant prosecutor decided against legal action because they hadn’t broken Russian law.
Some might rail against the company but when we travel to other countries or purchase over the net we pay whatever the going rate is for that purchase. And that’s exactly what I do when I use allofmp3. I refuse to pay 99 cents for “near cd quality music. Likewise DRM just plain sucks. When I use allofmp3, I purchase what I want in whatever codec and whatever bitrate I want. In particular I purchase cd quality music in the AAC format.
I have always found allofmp3 to be helpful when I’ve had technical problems. They ALWAYS reply to my emails within 24 hours. If you refuse to use the service that’s your problem. I take the view that main aim of the internet is to foster trade in information and products and that’s all that the company is doing. And if you want to pay $16.99 for sub cd quality that’s your choice as well.
“Allofmp3 leapfrogged U.S. online music store Napster over the first half of the year to make it the second-most popular music site in the U.K. after iTunes.”
That’s not saying much. I leapfrogged Napster after selling 3 CDs on eBay!
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When you use allofmp3 you do not pay though the company you pay through chronopay.com which is a European equivalent of paypal. I was at first reluctant to use the service but I’ve been using allofmp3 for a couple of months and my credit card account is intact and everything’s OK. I checked them out over the net beforehand and there were no complaints…except for the fact that at times their servers slow down.
Oh one thing I didn’t say is that just because the music is cheap I’m still pretty picky about the music I purchase. In three months I haven’t spent more than $60.00.
If you’re worried about the service do what I did use an account with a small amount of money that way you still have peace of mind.
I think the music industry has way too much pull to allow this sort of thing to happen. To criminalize stealing music to some degree is just ridiculous. I mean after all the music industry has been robbing artists blind from the very beginning. Where’s the outcry?
I’m sure allofmp3.com are loving all this publicity.
I thought the Beatles weren’t on any download services
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“In Russia the legal retail price for a cd is around $2.00 to $3.00 per unit. Allofmp3 is charging around $2.00 for a cd quality product. They collect royalties and pay to ROMS. If the record companies refuse to take the money collected on their behalf that’s their business.”
Ah, so the hell with the artists then is it? You don’t find it even remotely immoral to screw the hard-working artists who created the music in the first place? Don’t they deserve to make something? If not for the artists, THERE IS NO MUSIC.
It’s completely fricked up, whether it’s this russian site or “all you can eat” subscription plans, if the artists get essentially zip.
DON’T SUPPORT PLANS SCREW THE ARTISTS!
DON’T SUPPORT PLANS THAT SCREW THE ARTIST
I meant
The record compaines need to pay attention and get their heads out of their a&^%s.
I just went to Allofmp3 (for the first time) and found a whole collection of Jethro Tull albums for sale there.
None on iTunes Music Store. Why? (Not Apple’s fault, I’m sure)
So there’s another reason we go buy from places like Allofmp3.
Allofmp3.com pays royalties into ROMS and it is the record companies who refuse to accept the payments, and as such it is they who are depriving the artists of royalties. Perhaps the critics of this site should do what I did before using the it; do some research. It’s all there on the net.
i use pre-paid VISA cards to use allofmp3… works great, and i don’t have to worry about attribution or them getting my account numbers.
Music companies own the music… the musicians are given royalties… it is the responsibility of the record company to pay the musos out of what they get.
How does paying $2 bucks in Russia screw musos?
Are you saying that Free Trade is bad?
Hmmm pity we don’t think of that every time we buy Nike or other “Free Trade loving” ware, or worse—assume that free trade is really “free”
Free Trade is about making products permeate borders but people and their rights are contained behind national borders.
If Orange County residents (and their ilk) could work out a way to truck their front lawns to Tijjuna then you would see the Berlin Wall go up in days.
I think the phrase quoted above says it all:
“this has to be decided by a court and no court has said this is illegitimate.”
In other words, we’re not running a real, legal business, but no one has proved that we’re doing something illegal – yet.
This sounds remarkably similar to the sort of things that Napster (Mark I) were saying when they were getting hounded. “Well, it’s just people sharing their own personal files. There can’t be anything wrong with that.”
If you want to give money over to some Russian criminals just to make yourself “feel good” about what is essentially theft, you go ahead. I personally think you’d be better off just downloading on a P2P network for free and just admitting that you don’t like paying for things. At least you wouldn’t be bankrolling scam artists in the process.
Some people’s moral justifications are funny. “The record companies are big nasty dishonest corporations, they deserve it.” “I don’t have to deal with DRM, and I get what I want.”
You know what? You can get what you want all the time, any time. Just don’t try and rationalize it to me as being a good thing. I’m sure there’s people out there that like to molest 10-year-old boys that could give you a load of justification for it – but that still doesn’t make it right. It just means you can rationalize away anything that doesn’t agree with you getting what you want.
By the way, getting what you want is not an inalienable human right. Geez, I’m starting to sound all crotchety. Sorry. Must have woke up on the wrong side of something today.
Oh, Telstar please don’t tell me you really believe this B.S.
Let’s say for example that I stole your car, drove it around for a week, and then offered you $40. I put it in an envelope in your mailbox, and explained that it was payment for gas, maintenance, and rental for use of your vehicle.
Now I can justify that I didn’t steal your car, I’m renting it from you, and if you don’t accept the money, well that’s your problem. You’re just screwing yourself.
PLEASE get a clue you effing moron.
They’re still stealing, you’re still stealing, and nobody’s getting paid but some Russian pseudo-gangsters.
This isn’t about free trade or any other bullshit.
And I still hate DRM, Record companies, and most modern popular music. But 2 wrongs don’t make a right. (Although three Rights do make a Left when you’re driving.)
It is pretty amazing that this is affecting Russia’s WTO bid. The recording industry has WAY too much power.
I use allofmp3 exclusively. I have deposited over $100 and NEVER had one single problem. They use a secure Visa authentication from Visa itself.
I then take all of the music I purchase (including cover art) and just drag it into iTunes.
BTW – you can encode your purchased music at pretty much any bitrate you want and any kind of compression scheme (MP3, AAC, OGG. etc.). You aren’t limited to 128 kbps DRM’ed AAC. Also, most songs cost about .09 – .11 cents.
Screw iTunes, screw artist royalites, and screw all you self-righteous, sanctimonious dipsh*ts.