"Would it be any different if i flew to russia and bought a cd there and brought it back with me, or just download the CD? Im still paying for the copyrights of the music i listen to"

No, it wouldn't be any different. However, if you bought a pirated CD from a sidewalk bootlegger, all bets are off.

The real question here is (and I think it is the focus of the allegations), are you paying for the rights, ie: Is AllOfMP3.com paying their share of the fees for rights? Who knows right now.

If you bought stolen goods, US laws does not recognize you as the owner, and in certain circumstances you can be prosecuted for receiving stolen goods. I would guess that purchasers at this site would not be pursued since it is still questionable at best at this point.

"Well, if a music label in the United States is not compensating an artist because it snookered them with a crafty contract, are they "...effectively stealing from those who create music..."? "

That is a whole different matter. Contracts between parties are just that , between parties. Each side should make fully educated decisions before signing any contractural obligations. Record companies do get the lions share of proceeds from new artists, while they often get a much smaller share from established artists. BUT, record companies spend millions on bands that end up going nowhere, and lose lots of money. The record companies are not in this business to make us whistle with joy, they are in the business to make money. If they lose it on one risk, they must make it up in other ways. Established artists have too much pull to give the companies an added profit just because another band didn't perform well. So guess who gets the raw deal, the new artist. However, the established artist 99 percent of the time got to where they are because of the record companies investments.


"Also, the way the law seems to work in former soviet union is, you only get prosecuted if you have pissed off somebody important, or someone has paid the authorities to go after you, which seems likely in this case."

In any case of copyright ownership, whether tangible or intellectual rights, here in the U.S., our history has been the same. Enforcement only goes after the pirates when prompted by the private sector or by loss of taxes. Until a decade ago, counterfeiters got away with millions of transactions in designer purses, clothes, tapes, DVDs and CDs. Only in recent history has law enforcement cracked down, all at the behest of large corporations.

What do you think about the legality of allowing counterfeiters and piracy to flourish in the U.S. Would it affect your job in any way? Think about it.

By the way, I do not work for record companies, nor am I a fledging artist. I am an economist and capitalist. I do believe in certain socialist measures for the good of the community (like food, shelter, jobs for the homeless and under-employed). But I do not believe the record companies, or any other private sector, non-essential, company owes us anything other than reasonable accountability.

I just downloaded Kill Bill vols 1 & 2 soundtracks from AllofMP3.com and was quite happy with the results (though the downloaded wasn't all that simple, and I do not want to install their 'downloader' for fear of MalWare). Personally, I still like to buy the actual CD with inserts and all. I get mine on Amazon.com for $0.45 - $2 each. Is this illegal? Nope, they tend to be used or samples. On occassion, I'll pop $16+ for a new CD.

duckNrun.... I couldn't have said it better!

Has anyone who posted here in defense of allofmp3.com considered that IFPI could be the people that should be getting paid by allofmp3.com and would therefore know whether or not they are getting paid? In that case, i would suspect that the mafia is involved in making it "legal" and the IFPI are probably powerless inside Russia.

However, if allofmp3.com genuinly does have a comparative advantage with regards to paying royalties then the IFPI should mind there own business.

Donuts
Isnt that the problem they go after familys and people just to amke a livieng? *L*

Eh Sicne the site dosnet have all their paper work of corse they re not "lealge" but tis a interesting thign that they could be.

sinistrad: erm, it's 2006, Russia isn't communist any morew.
jeffsreid: Yes, regional pricing, but that doesn't mean it should apply to the rest of the world. You're right about the suckers. I agree about the filler argument too, Digital downloads allow us to preview 30s of tracks on itunes for FREE and then to download the ones we like. I don't have an ipod because 90% of UK people have them, it's common, boring and I think other players are better. I have a Gigabeat but the true king of the MP3 player world is the Creative Zen series. Shame the omnipresent ipod functionality hasn't taken hold for other mp3 players.

Matamoros: Hmm, not that the USA is communist, you'd be torn to pieces for suggesting that.

Ballyphon: Lol if you came back to the UK, you'd have the FACT sniffer dogs up your backside. Better watch that!

duckNrun: Yep, sad truth. I wouldn't ask questions about downloading an album from allofmp3.

sammorris
Well in some sence the US is communist
communist= everythign for the goveremnt
USA=coperation owen goveremnt
*L*

Besides russia is falling back into a communist style rule with puton clsoeing down all forms of free non goverment meida and such and trying to paint a bright picture on it >< and the US ignores it and whines about Iran and nukes.

LOL. Nice politics.

AllofMP3.com is a great site with a good downloading browser.
If it goes; I will revert to slower erratic P2P. I won't be playing the rip-off NAPSTER or iTunes prices with DRM restrictions, thats for sure!"

Drmors.

Quote:

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Is there anyway to convert a WMA-DRM to WMA without DRM; because I will pay, but then the song should be mine.

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I buy itunes (or use too), I then burn a CD from Itunes and right after that make MP3s from the CD, all song tags stay intact and you have MP3s that you can move anywhere.

itunes, rhapsody and naptser all suck but they still make money because consumers SUCK even more then they do because consumers accept this .99 per song stuff. Heck, you can even by many of the all time great bands because itunes doesnt have licensing with them (what a crock!!!).

allofMP3 is the best site for MP3s period. Besides the price tag, the ease of use if 1000% superior then itunes, napster and so on. They got it right and we didnt, as for illegal and the "too good to be true" stuff. Americans need to travel the world to realize that cost structures are not the same. Its geocentric thinking that everyone and everyelse should be similar to the US.

If the Russian government declares them Legal THEY ARE SIMPLY LEGAL enough said. American business needs to talk to the Russian government about it and not use childish propaganda and online spin.

Wait until Mark Cuban gets his online Movie stuff going. He vows to not add done copywrite protection stuff. He gets it also and knows how to make profit.

Quote:

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Authorities estimate the damage to the entertainment industry at around $30 million.

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lol and this is why the entertainment industry is run by a bunch of tried old greedy fat guys with no common sense. What is that as a percentage???? 1%???? Give me a break what a waste of time and money to worry about 1% of your business.

lol, instead just increase profits elsewhere but changing their ideology and distribution model. Of course they cant because they dont know how to think outside of the box.

If they want to battle piracy simply make it super easy to buy their products and that will increase volume and decrease piracy.

Any concern over using Credit cards to pay for this service? Have heard of a friend of a friend that got sued by limewire so I am looking for an alternitive? Any comments?

I've made 4 transactions with them over the course of a couple years on my credit card. I haven't had any unusual transactions as a result, it is done over a secure server. Always been for the correct amount too, I was hesitant at first but has all been clear sailing for me.

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I was hesitant to use a credit card, especially first time, but used a debit card as an alternative six times without any repercussions to date.

I "bought" about 10-14 albums from Allofmp3 over the past 2yrs. I see about 60 cents in my account...now's the time to get out a debit card & use that sucker before the cheap filez are all killed off by IFPI!! My god, they sue everyone out of existence but people still will NOT pay $1 per song. Not everyone wants to pay for what they get, sad fact of life. If all piracy were made non-existant, people would either share with friends or not buy at all. So sue everyone and defeat the pirates, you can't take blood out of a stone.

Granted allofmp3 is cheap, but only for a basic medium quality mp3 download, if you want a wav file it costs about the same as a CD. And bear in mind that with your basic mp3 download you do not get a physical product, no supporting art work or documentation etc, so actaully I think that $2.00 an album is not 'too good to be true', I think that it is reasonable pricing. I have never, and will never pay £.99 per track from anyone - this makes an album MORE expensive than physically buying the CD, even here in the yUK. And if all of the major record companies did disappear do you really think that would be a bad thing? I don't, times change, musicians and artists are launching themselves on theb web more effectively, for less, and they are in control. More power to them.
In any case there is an easy way for the established busineses to beat pirates - be better and cheaper than them. Not as hard as you might think given that the marginal cost of shifting each unit of a music or video product is close to zero, and significantly less for a legitimate company than for a pirate. Think about it.

I'm contemplating giving allofmp3 my business just because of this.

sammorris- thats what flash drives and zip disks are for, unless you want to pack your CDs in coffee grounds.

If that's what it takes!

The problem w/record companies is they make a KILLING in profits but pass so little onto....hey the artists. THEY make the music, they write, the bust their @$$e$ to push their music and reach fans. A very popular artist (such as Prince) may not make as much $$$, but has more creative license over his work as an Indie. If different artists get together, form their own association, learn the ropes.....well that would lead to the major labels going down. As long as fans pay for music, they artists will be around.

What did the music world do before TimeWarner, Sony, VirginRecords, etc? I'm guessing they were all dirt poor & never made any $$$$.

No they made a killing because the record labels didn't keep all their $$$.

news update,thanks to p2pnet.net/ for this news update

AllofMP3.com statement

p2p news / p2pnet: As we posted yesterday, quoting The New York Times, "American trade negotiators have, "darkly warned that the Web site could jeopardize Russia's long-sought entry into the World Trade Organization."

The members of the Big Four Organized Music cartel have been trying to wipe AllofMP3.com off the Net for some considerable time. It is, after all, competition.

For its part, AllofMP3.com hasn't had a lot to say. Until now. In an email statement we received this morning, it declares:

The US government officials and politicians have been demanding lately that the Russian authorities shut down allofmp3.com, alleging the site is pirate. Otherwise, they threaten Russia with sanctions, including blocking its entry to WTO.

In this regard we would like to make a statement:

1. The site AllOfMP3.com belongs to a Russian company and for 6 years it has operated within the country, in full compliance with all Russian laws. Throughout this period the various government offices have scrutinized site's legality and have not found any breach of the law. So far there has been no decision by any Russian court contesting the site's legality.

2. The Russian site AllOfMP3.com is not operating or advertising its business on the territory of other countries.

3. The site AllOfMP3.com does regularly transfer substantial amounts of royalties to the Russian organizations for collective management of rights such as ROMS and FAIR, which have granted the site licenses to legally deliver music through the Internet.

4. The site AllofMP3.com reserves the right to take all steps necessary to protect its business reputation. We call upon everyone to take a thorough and unbiased view of the site's legality.

5. On September 1, 2006 the changes to the Russian copyright legislation will come into force. Since January 2006 the site has been making direct agreements with rightholders and authors at the same time increasing the price of the music compositions and transferring the royalties directly to the artists and record companies. The aim of AllofMP3.com is to agree with all rightholders on the prices and royalties amounts by September 1, 2006.

6. We believe in the long term and civilized business based on respecting the law, considering the customers' demands as well as the interests of both national and international rightholders.

The AllofMP3.com Administration

June 6, 2006 Moscow
Contact information: press@allofmp3.com
Available at http://allofmp3.com/statement.shtml

Definitely stay tuned.

Digg this story.

Also See:
darkly warned - US muscles AllofMP3.com, June 5, 2006
http://p2pnet.net/story/8985

Blocking entry to the world trade organisation because of an mp3 web site? That's the funniest thing I've heard all day!

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Blocking Russia's entry into the WTO because of a single, measely website? Pshhhhhahhh...hahahah...yeah right!

Greed. Power. The will to use it and the arrogance to not. Sometimes it seems like the world is so corrupt, so much so that you can forget about the cleaner aspects of society.

And now Visa have blocked the site from allowing purchases via their cards. It's the begining of the end for non-russian users of the site. I've transferred to eMusic.

spam removed