USTR ‘AllofMP3.com’ paper
p2pnet.net News:- “I have a hard time imagining Russia becoming a member of the WTO and having a Web site [AllofMP3.com] like that up and running that is so clearly a violation of everyone’s intellectual property rights,” said Susan Schwab, America’s official trade representative last month.
A pile-driver to crack a nut? Not where the profits of the entertainment cartels, backed by the outgoing US administration, are concerned.
The Big Four Organized Music cartel’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), “would like U.S. law to prevail over Russian law in Russia,” says Vadim Mamotin, director general of Mediaservices, Allofmp3’s parent company.
But, “the fact is that the sovereign rights of one nation can’t be trampled on by an outside organization like the RIAA,” he goes on. “And, although the RIAA tried in vain to link two disparate issues – the business dispute with AllofMP3 and the WTO matter – it was clearly a failed exercise insofar as they based the link on a misrepresentation about the illegality of AllofMP3.”
Mamotin is referring to the fact the American government hopes it’s finally come up with the means to smash Russia’s AllofMP3.com on behalf of EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and the only US record label, Warner Music, using the World Trade Organization talks as the hammer.
But any hope he may have of separating the two are clearly dashed in an official Office of the November 19 United States Trade Representative document highlighting actions to be taken against AllofMP3.com, from a p2pnet comment post link.
“The United States and Russia have agreed on a binding blueprint for actions that Russia will take to address piracy and counterfeiting and improve protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR), both stated priorities of the Russian Government, starting immediately,” says the USTR declaration, going on:
“This agreement sets the stage for further progress on IPR issues in Russia through the next phase of multilateral negotiations, during which the United States and other WTO members will examine Russia’s IPR regime. This binding agreement is an integral part of the United States – Russia WTO bilateral market access agreement, and implementation of the commitments on IPR will be essential to completing the final multilateral negotiations on the overall accession package.”
Americans can legally buy music from AllofMP3.com, says Mamotin, also stating it would cooperate with the Big Four by removing disputed songs so long as, “the copyright holders request such action and can prove they own the rights”.
But, “For months, AllofMP3 has stated the company will comply with the request from any copyright holder to remove any music from the site,” says the USTR document. “However, the company has not heard from the Russian Licensing Societies or the record labels. Perhaps, opt-out requests are not being made because the record labels can’t clear the rights.”
Under Fighting Internet Piracy, “The United States and Russia agreed on the objective of shutting down websites that permit illegal distribution of music and other copyright works,” says the paper, specifically naming AllofMP3.com, “as an example of such a website”.
Stay tuned for the next act in the farce.
Also See:
clearly a violation – Russia, US, copyright deal, November 15, 2006
Susan Schwab – MPAA, RIAA, US team up, June 15, 2006
prevail over Russian law – AllofMP3.com OK for US, November 28, 2006
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November 29th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
The agreement has this interesting paragraph:
[quote]
work actively with the Duma to enact by June, 2007:
amendments to the law to provide that collecting societies may act only on behalf of rights holders that explicitly authorize such action [/quote]
It will take amendments to the current laws to have the licenses issued by ROMS declared illegal. This means that Allofmp3 is still legal at the moment! Remember? Allofmp3 stated that they were legal because the have been licensed by the collecting society Roms and that Roms did not need prior authority by labels and artists to grant licenses to sell music. Allofmp3 was right all the time, Big Music knew this and tried to fool us.
Big Music had to use dirty tactics like lobbying to be able to act against Allofmp3 because legally they were empty handed.