“Russia has agreed to US demands to close the popular music website Allofmp3.com,” Jeroen Doorn reports for Macworld UK. “The US wants the site closed to fight music piracy. Russia has agreed to close the site in an attempt at improving its chance of gaining membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO).”
Doorn reports, “Russia will close down other websites that infringe copyrights, according to a PDF document on the website of the US Trade Representative.”
Full article, with link to the PDF document, here.
Related articles:
AllOfMP3 ‘close to breathing its last’ as Visa and Mastercard stop accepting transactions – October 19, 2006
Brits plan to sue AllofMP3.com – June 07, 2006
AllofMP3 jeopardizes Russia’s WTO bid – June 05, 2006
Just a sprinkle of pallonium and it’s all better now…
Almighty Russia’s final humiliation
Thank God, now we don’t have to worry about the Russians anymore…
“Just a sprinkle of pallonium”
That’s polonium, named by its discoverer, Marie Curie, for her homeland, Poland.
I got corrected once.
Yep, it was only a matter of time before this happened. I just looked back at the discussion from the 10.19.06 article and this very thing was discussed.
Boo. Illegal site are what keep the legal ones on their toes. They stop record companies getting greedy and raising prices, stop them from applying obscene amounts of DRM.
On hearing the news I immediately went to the site and started exhausting my account. And for what it’s worth there is no DRM, you can choose the type of encoding you want and the bitrate.
Oh well, it was good while it lasted. And a special message to the record companies; it’s back to the torrents sites for me. An inconvenience yes, but it’s a Pyrrhic victory for the record companies.
there are thousands of people who work in the music industry and all make their living (directly or indirectly) from the royalties. for every overpaid pop star or “big record exec” there are literally a thousand people who produce or aid the production of the product. (not to mention that most “stars” are immensely talented and most worked hard for years (or decades) to achieve their fame)
Boo! Hang you heads in shame boys, stealing other peoples work is wrong no matter how you slice it.
P.S. If you are going to steal music (without paying royalties) at least do it over P2P so you don’t make scum sucking pirates like AllofMP3 rich in the process.
there are thousands of people who work in the music industry and all make their living (directly or indirectly) from the royalties. for every overpaid pop star or “big record exec” there are literally a thousand people who produce or aid the production of the product. (not to mention that most “stars” are immensely talented and most worked hard for years (or decades) to achieve their fame)
Boo! Hang you heads in shame boys, stealing other peoples work is wrong no matter how you slice it.
P.S. If you are going to steal music (without paying royalties) at least do it over P2P so you don’t make scum sucking pirates like AllofMP3 rich in the process.
there are thousands of people who work in the music industry and all make their living (directly or indirectly) from the royalties. for every overpaid pop star or “big record exec” there are literally a thousand people who produce or aid the production of the product. (not to mention that most “stars” are immensely talented and most worked hard for years (or decades) to achieve their fame)
Boo! Hang you heads in shame boys, stealing other peoples work is wrong no matter how you slice it.
P.S. If you are going to steal music (without paying royalties) at least do it over P2P so you don’t make scum sucking pirates like AllofMP3 rich in the process.
OMG don’t even know where to start with this one.
“for every overpaid pop star or “big record exec” there are literally a thousand people who produce or aid the production of the product.”
And the key point here is, in the digital age, there doesn’t need to be a thousand people. Maybe a dozen or so. And the people with the real know-how involved producing a recording are grossly underpaid because of the big pop star and the greedy exec hoarding the profits. This keeps prices at their current ridiculous levels as well.
“most “stars” are immensely talented and most worked hard for years (or decades) to achieve their fame.”
Seriously, are you trying to make me piss myself. Few “stars” are immensely talented. “Stars” are well promoted, which necessitates the “thousand people” to make a recording successful. Some “stars” struggle for decades to earn their place at the top, but most just luck out, meet the right people, kiss the right ass and are willing to trade enough of their self respect to sell out and become “stars”. Meanwhile other, more talented musicians and songwriters are left to struggle.
re: RS & borg gush:
I’m not too ashamed. I used to be in the record biz and I got out of it because it was so crooked. I know their crookedness is no excuse, but c’mon. It costs less than a quarter to manufacture a CD. Record labels are making a KILLING, and the artists hardly sees any of that cash. So screw it.
AllOfMP3 is legal in Russia, so I haven’t broken any laws. At least not until a precedent has been set in a US lawsuit, and so far, that hasn’t happened.
RECORD LABELS R.I.P.
Good riddance.
Talented or not, they made the music and made the investment to bring it to the public, and you didn’t. They are entitled to whatever they want to charge to sell the music.
By the logic of the music stealers, I should be able to walk into a Volvo dealership and give them $15,000 for the finest automobile in the place, because that’s what I think they have in it.
If you don’t want to pay for the music, then you shouldn’t have it. I think the “musicians” are a bunch of no-talent hacks, but that doesn’t entitle me to steal what they made at someone’s expense.
This “stealing music” phenomenon really encapsulates what is wrong with my generation (20-30’s). Everyone is looking for a way to tear someone else down (i.e. “they’re not talented, they just got lucky”). Those who steal the music and gripe about the no-talent stars would probably give their left leg to trade places.
What if your boss came in tomorrow and said “You didn’t earn this job, you just got lucky because you were in the right place at the right time. I’m not giving you your paycheck this week.”? That’s what you are saying when you steal music.
And by the way, the music stealing phenomenon is the reason the record companies apply the incredible amount of DRM in the first place. It’s kind of like a burglar griping about the alarm system…
Kerry,
Nicely said.
Also, I often hear the music stealers call the recording industry folks greedy bastards. Greedy? Any reasonable person should also recognize that illegally or unethically taking all that you can of something is greedy!
Dear mudflapper
Yes you have already broken the law. You took somthing without paying the owner what he was asking. AllofMP3 was only legal for people inside the Russian borders and they stated that when you signed up. (and then only on a technicality)
You simply didn’t get caught. If you had stolen the CD’s at a record store and not gotten caught there would be little ethical difference. You took something that did not rightfully belong to you and did not compensate the owner(s)). Your pathetic attempts to rationalize that theft notwithstanding.
Hey, what’s that sound? Why, it’s thousands and thousands of greedy, self-entitled Slashdotters crying out in rage! I’ll have to go over there later and check out the self-pity party. It’ll be a nice preview of the day the Pirate Bay finally gets its comeuppance.
Stealing is wrong – whether from the record companies (and artists) by stealing music from AllofMP3, torrents or friends, or BY the record companies by charging money for the purchase of iPods.
Kerry, well said. Welcome to the age of Extreme Moral Relativism. Where personal justifications always supercede societal, legal, or cultural norms.
Here’s how it works, kids:
1) Demonize your “victim” first, to avoid any sense of guilt or shame.
“I personally believe that my neighbor is an overpaid greedy jackass who doesn’t deserve what he has. So I am completely justified in smashing his windows, taking his Plasma HDTV and appropriating it.”
2) Use logical sounding non-logic to prove you are not wrong.
“I haven’t broken any laws because I haven’t been arrested yet.”
3) Use comparisons that show you in a favorable light and make you look like the victim.
“And I know he can afford a new window and TV, and I just got laid off and I can’t afford even a regular 19″ and my mom’s sick and…”
4) Isolate your victim, as though there are no effects beyond him.
“You know, I don’t feel bad for his family, because he never even let his wife or kids watch the TV, so I’m not hurting them at all.”
5) Act as though you are a personal provider of social justice on behalf of everyone else.
“I just felt it was time SOMEBODY taught that dude a lesson. He was due, and I’m sure a lot of people are satisfied now to see him get his just desserts.”
See how wonderful Extreme Moral Relativism can be?
For those who haven’t had a philosophy class lately, one way to look at things like this is to use the Kant test, named after Immanuel Kant. Basically, the Kant test amounts to examining any action from this perspective:
“What if EVERYONE did this. Would the effects be positive or negative?”
In the case of stealing music, movies, software, and other digital stuff? What if EVERYONE stopped paying for all of this? Simple.. first there would be more and stricter attempts at DRM. Worse and worse to the point of a complete and utter Draconian mire. Imagine what exists now but 10 times worse. Imagine having to carry around a digital passkey that generates a personal random number that you have to enter every time you want to play a song or watch a movie.
Or, if that failed, then simply a lot of businesses would go out of business. Musicians and actors would start looking for “real” jobs. Wages for “real” jobs would go down, because of the availability of workers desperate for income. Unemployment would go up. The economy would go south.
There are lots of things you could envision if everyone followed the puerile examples of RS, Borg Gush, and their ilk.
Sorry for the rant people… it just saddens me to see logic so twisted used to justify actions that so obviously are harmful to people. And then to have logic twisted further to claim that harm is irrelevant or non-existant.
Remember, two wrongs don’t make a right, but three rights make a left.
Gill Bates,
Technically, there are no laws, that I know of, that make it illegal to purchase music from AllOfMP3.com. Until a lawsuit is filed and won, and a precedent is set, I’m in the clear. That point is moot now anyway.
I think I spent about $30 at ALLOfMP3. And I only purchased from that site because ITMS’ sound quality is dismal. I’m not paying $17.99 for an entire CD when I only want a couple of tracks off of it in the first place.
I’m sorry, but if the record labels want me to purchase more music legally, they need to lower CD prices, which by the way they promised YEARS ago, and they need to up the quality of downloadable music. (The artists should also get a larger percentage of the profits, but that’s another thread entirely.)
blucaso,
“Welcome to the age of Extreme Moral Relativism. Where personal justifications always supercede societal, legal, or cultural norms.” AllOfMP3 maintains I didn’t break any laws (http://www.allofmp3.com/press/centre.shtml?s=993&d=18191974). As far as socio-cultural mores, I’m not out of place here. I’m one of many millions that are doing the exact same thing. So that argument isn’t very effective. (By the way, I always liked Kant and Bentham as well, so I’m with you there.)
Being a reasonable person, I have to say I agree that, technically, downloading music from P2P is stealing. Now, I’m going to sort of justify it here, so everyone please spare me the Republican-esque slippery-slope moralism, but it’s a fact that CD sales plummeted when the original Napster was shut down. Why? Because people were downloading music to see if they LIKED it before purchasing it. Once that wasn’t available to them any longer, sales dropped like a rock. That’s a fact.
Downloading music via P2P is good for business. Of course, if you download all of your music this way and never pay for anything, you’re taking advantage of the system, and that’s wrong.
“1) Demonize your “victim” first, to avoid any sense of guilt or shame.”
No one has to demonize the so-called victim. Sony, for one, does it to itself better than anyone else possibly could.
Kudos to you, mudflapper for being able to disagree rationally without resorting to lowest-common-denominator tactics.
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You know, the just becasue the guy selling you gold jewelry out of a briefcase on a city street tells you “These aren’t stolen, just so you know” doesn’t mean he’s telling the truth. He’d sell a lot less if he slapped every customer with “This is illegal, but help me out here.”
The fact is that you, as a rational person, (and I’m not picking on you here, but on consumers in general) know for a fact that record companies do not legally sell their products for 7 cents or whatever. You don’t need the companies legal mumbo-jumbo to KNOW that the record companies did not give AoMP3 the rights to distribute their music. Illegal? Probably, but perhaps Russian legal loopholes exist. But Justifiable? Not even a question, to anyone with any sense.
And I happen to agree with you about P2P. I do NOT support P2P stealing, but I personally have bought CD’s based on Napster previews way way way back in the old days when Napster was Napster. I actually DID use it to preview new music.
I said then, and continue to say that the Record Industry made a HUGE mistake in shutting down Napster and fighting it tooth and nail. They should have instead figured out a way to MAKE IT WORK FOR THEM. Because Napster proved something that it took several years and the iTunes Music Store to get right…
Napster (Mark I) proved that consumers were clamoring for a one-stop online experience, where they could find virtually ANY MUSIC they wanted. Even now, iTMS doesn’t have the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and several other major holdouts. The record labels are stupid, pitiful, and yes, do themselves immense harm to their own self-image.
Believe me, I am the LAST person who will defend a record exec or the industry practices. What’s good for the goose.. yadda yadda.
I don’t think that anyone’s really mourning the loss of allofmp3.com. If you want to preview music, go find a p2p program or a torrent program. If you want to get legal downloads, iTunes, eMusic, and quite a few others have you covered. And record stores? Hey, they’re a click or two away. So who really cares?
I have the solution for all this and it is for iTunes Music Store to have the option to sell a physical CD and ship it to you if you prefer it.
I think for some people the issue here is convienience of purchasing music without leaving home. Sometimes you don’t have the time to go down to a brick and mortar store to buy your favorite music.
I have to admit that I have used allofmp3.com if I couldn’t find the song on the ITMS but also if I wanted a choice in compression rates or, a non compressed file I would try to find it on allofmp3.com.
I never liked the P2P sites because of the random quality of the music files and some of the files were not even the right songs.
I for one would sometimes prefer to purchase a non compressed audio file or, CD if the music is worth it and also if the price is right.
Everyone that complain about the sound quality is not as good as the CD will have the choice of buying the actual CD unless Apple works out a deal to sell downloads of Apple Lossless files or, Lossless complete CD’s at a realistic price comparative to a physical CD.
Or, if the record companies are going to be adament about DRM for anything downloaded then, Apple can apply the same limit of 7 CD burns of a particular playlist
This might be wishful thinking but, maybe Apple can credit you the difference if you want to upgrade to Apple Lossless for the music that you have already purchased from the ITMS.
I know the record companies want to push DRM but, what is the difference if you have a non DRM CD that you bought at a store to a non DRM Lossless file that you bought from the ITMS.
I would be able to make as many copies that I wanted with either but if I were to put it on my ipod I would compress it to the highest bitrate 320 MP3.
Actually, if I can buy a Apple Lossless or, other non compressed file instead of a CD at a comparative price without cluttering up my house with CD’s then I am in.
blucaso,
Yes, thanks for keeping this civil.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> The funny thing is, I agree with just about everything you said. I just got so fed up downloading crappy MP3s from the P2P networks that I started downloading from AllOfMP3. (Btw, I purchased Acquisition for that purpose. I know, ironic to pay for a program to steal music. But it’s a gorgeous app!)
There’s a lot more gray area to this situation than there is black and white.
If iTunes offered 256kbps AAC files, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. I don’t like lining the labels’ pockets, and I don’t like stealing, but I have to admit I like giving Apple my money. It’s my way of saying, “Good job. Keep up the good work.” The same with recording artists. I wish I could pay them directly. Wouldn’t it be great if all artists just dropped their labels on the same day?
m