The Sound of Russian Music
p2pnet.net News:- One of Julian Bond’s favourite music sites is Russia’s allofmp3.com. He never misses a chance to plug it when he’s posting on p2pnet.
For instance, in a p2pnet story on an IIPA (International Intellectual Property Alliance ‘report’, he commented, “You know the IIPA really should try harder. They’re just not giving enough free advertising to specific sites like allofmp3.com.
Not to worry, Julian. The Wall Street Journal’s Vauhini Vara is right on target.
Wayne Fry is willing to pay a dollar to download music – so long as that gets him an entire album, she writes.
It seems Fry is an ex-Kazaa user who decided to abandon it when he noticed the cartel was suing people for, “illegally sharing copyrighted music,” says Vara.
So, she continues, “He switched to what he saw as a more legitimate service: a Russian Web site called AllofMP3.com1 that touted legal music downloads for as little as a nickel apiece, much cheaper than the 99 cents charged for songs at Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes Music Store.”
Vara points out other Russian music sites such as MP3search.ru2 and 3MP3.ru3 with low prices, large catalogues [unlike the Big music cartel’s offerings], high-quality downloads and no restrictions are catching on with US music fans.
She doesn’t mention music lovers outside of North America, but the picture is the same elsewhere.
Ask Bond who, like Vara, often points out that single downloads go for 10 cents or less, and full albums for about $1.
“The sites, which contain English-language versions with prices in U.S. dollars, generally include legal notices asserting that they are in full compliance with copyright law, though some warn that non-Russian users should consult the laws of their own countries,” says Vara.
She also has Fry saying he’s downloaded close to 2,500 songs from artists such as Black Sabbath and Johnny Cash for less than $200 – compared with the nearly $2,500 the songs would have cost through Apple’s iTunes.
But Big Music cartel enforcer the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, is, “looking closely at [Russian sites] and will take whatever legal steps are necessary against them,” spokesman Adrian Strain is quoted as saying, although he “declined to say which sites the group has targeted, and declined to comment specifically on AllofMP3.com, MP3search.ru or 3MP3.ru.”
Well ripped, well tagged, named and tidy
Back to Bond, “I’m really not that unusual,” he says in his post.
“I’m something of a music fanatic but with somewhat left field tastes. I discover new music via things like last.fm forums. I never get singles, only whole albums. When there’s something I discover I want, the sequence goes something like this.
- Allofmp3
- Soulseek
- Amazon wishlist
- Direct from the artist or label’s website
- Amazon
“Allofmp3’s catalogue is pretty large and they’re quite good for less well known grooves. It’s just plain easier to pay the money for well ripped, well tagged, named and tidy files.
“If they don’t have it, then I’ll put the effort in (at minimum wage) to find UberRips on soulseek. This takes some time and invariably involves tidying ID3 tags and filenames even when you’ve managed to find the files from a sharer with some bandwidth who stays up long enough to grab them.
“If that fails I’ll just wait for someone to buy them from my wishlist.
“And if I really can’t wait, then I’ll try and buy direct from the artist or label. Or if that’s impossible, then from Amazon.
“Every CD that comes into the house gets ripped immediately and stored. I’m too tired of the kids leaving CDs around unboxed to get scratched, lost and destroyed.
“The point here is that I really can’t be bothered to battle with P2P downloading when I can pay a reasonable amount and save the time and effort. So it’s really not AllOfMp3.com that I’m promoting. It’s the business model. Sell me something I want (LAME MP3 with no DRM) at a reasonable price (~10-20c per track) and I’ll buy it rather than download it via P2P.
“It’s a straight economic market decision. Money+Quality+Ease = Free+Effort <> Expensive Crap
“What I really want to see is a mainstream western AllOfMp3.com where the catalogue is all >12 months old and includes everything ever recorded. I figure that wouldn’t get Apple’s measly 250m downloads, it would get more like 250B. And whoever did it would get very, very rich in the process.
“And I will not buy anything with DRM. Just Say No To DRM!”
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See:-
try harder, Internet piracy IIPA’s No 1, February 11, 2005
on target – Russian Sites Sell Song Downloads For Pennies, But Are They Legal?, January 24, 2005
