Music for the Masses
p2pnet.net News:- AllofMP3.com represents viable, and extremely powerful, competition to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big Four Organized Music cartel.
That’s why they hate and fear it so much.
The Russian p2p music download site is being pilloried by the US administration, with US trade rep Susan Schwab in the front line, and now the site is planning to release, “hundreds of thousands of albums free,” says the International Herald Tribune.
There’s an interesting anaolgy between what’s happening to AllofMP3.com, and to the Big Four’s consumer base.
In both cases, Organized Music is using its tremendous wealth, and the frightening political clout it buys, its limitless legal resources and its various faux trade organizations such as the RIAA, BPI, IFPI, etc, to pressure governments into introducing legislation and initiating actions which, bottom line, exist solely to serve and protect members’ bottom lines.
And the same charge can be levelled at the movie and software industries.
AllofMP3.com, “remunerates artists by paying 15 percent of its revenue to a collecting agency, the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society, or ROMS by its initials in Russian,” the story has Vadim Mamotin, director general of the site’s parent company, Mediaservices, saying, “by telephone with the International Herald Tribune” and then during an online chat with journalists.
“Organizations representing global authors, composers, music publishers and record companies issued a statement, however, calling for closure of the site and reaffirming their stance that both ROMS and AllofMP3 operate illegally,” says the story, continuing:
“The battle with AllofMP3 comes as the Internet continues to bring upheaval to the music industry by radically changing distribution models. Some players, like Pirate Bay in Sweden, continue to operate illegally, while others, like Napster and Kazaa, have come into the legal fold in order to offer services in cooperation with the music industry.”
Not at all incidetnally, on the same day that AllofMP3.com held its press conference, the Big Four’s IFPI also announced it was going after 8,000 men, women and children around the world for allegedly “distributing” copyrighted music files online.
“Warner Music, EMNI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG claim their sue ‘em all lawsuits are driving victims to the corporate online ’services’ and ’stores’ backed and supplied by the industry and, asserts John Kennedy, the man who runs the Big Four’s IFPI, the cases are, ‘proving a major deterrent to illegal p2p file-sharing’,” p2pnet posted yesterday.
However, “in September, on average 9,044,010 people around the world were logged onto the p2p networks simultaneously at any one time,” p2p market research company Big Champagne told us. In September last year, the number was 9,284,558, well up from the 6,784,574 in 2004 and 3,764,032 in 2003.
Meanwhile, AllofMP3 said its business model, “would move toward an ad-supported distribution of free content,” says the Herald Tribune.
“The company, which previously charged about $1 an album, plans to offer consumers a new software program that allows them to download any song from the site for free. AllofMP3 claims to have a catalogue of hundreds of thousands of albums, increasing at a rate of 1,000 per month.”
But to do so, music lovers will have to use an AllofMP3’s Music for the Masses application, and they’ll only be able to play the music on one computer at a time.
MftM, “initially be available for Microsoft Windows, with an Apple version arriving in several weeks,” says the International Herald Tribune, adding:
“Consumers who wish to transfer their songs between computers or to a music device like an iPod or another MP3 player, will have to pay for the music,” which in turn will win new customers and build a big enough community to attract advertising, it quotes Mamotin as saying.
“We eventually plan to run advertisements on the music player. We will lose revenue from music sales, but we hope that the advertising will more than make up for it.”
Also See:
International Herald Tribune – Moscow Music Site to Give Away Thousands of Albums, October 18, 2006
posted yesterday – Big Music ramps up anti-p2p war, October 17, 2006
at any one time – p2p file sharing is IN, October 17, 2006
p2pnet newsfeeds for your site.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss
Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
October 18th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
So AllofMP3.com, “remunerates artists by paying 15 percent of its revenue to a collecting agency, the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society, or ROMS by its initials in Russian,” the story has Vadim Mamotin, director general of the site’s parent company, Mediaservices, saying, “by telephone with the International Herald Tribune” and then during an online chat with journalists.
But then the Cartels refuse to register with ROMS so none of the money gets paid out.
So where does it go?
October 18th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
The acronym organizations are playing loose with the facts as always. There is much that they are not saying. Just like no p2p could get licensed by other than total capitulation into the cartels’ way, neither can allofmp3 get licensed. You can be sure that part isn’t being said.
Nor are those whinning about not being paid telling you of the refusal to accept the money from the ROMS. Being paid isn’t the real issue; it is the excuse to persue the closing of the sales site that doesn’t kowtoe to the cartels demands.
Accepting the money would mean acknowledgement of the business as a legal entity. Because total control is what is desired, they aren’t going to accept payment. Instead they will use WIPO as the tool to force the Russian government to close it for them with the WTO membership as the club to encourage the action. At times I am not to sure that the WTO membership is really a bargain to begin with. It comes with a price and that price is steep in many ways. Some of the third world counties have found that out.
The BSAs continual moaning and groaning about Africa being a hot bed of piracy is one good example. In a place where the cost of one software is equal to months of income and where life is cheap and often comes to a sudden end, they are more concerned with who is paying than they are the real life costs in the real world. It’s the old battle of the havenots vs the haves. Were I in that position, I would definately choose food and housing over software any day of the week. Take any one of those organizations, snatch out the CEO and place him in those conditions and I think he’ll understand just where the importance is readily and will make the same choices. What good is software without a place to use it or a body to live in?
October 19th, 2006 at 9:17 am
You can read a transcript of the press conference that took place last tuesday at http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3pressconference.htm