Big Music goes after AllofMP3
p2pnet.net News:- Thanks to the efforts of the Big Music cartel, Russia’s AllofMP3.com, which offers high quality mp3s at the kind of prices that should be standard everywhere, is being investigated by Russian police.
AllofMP3.com asks for between one and two cents for one megabyte of traffic.
“The Russian site claimed it had licenses to do so from a local clearing house, but record labels have maintained that the licenses weren’t valid,” says CNET News.
“After long-standing complaints, the Moscow City Police Computer Crimes division completed an investigation earlier this month and recommended that prosecutors charge the site’s operators with criminal copyright infringement.”
Whoa! Criminal copyright! Is that like murder, say?
Now, “We are pleased that the police are bringing this important case to the attention of the prosecutor,” Igor Pozhitkov, regional director of IFPI Moscow, is quoted as saying.
That’s hardly surprising considering the “long-standing complaints” came from the cartel-owned IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) which instigated the investigation in the first place.
However, AllofMP3.com owners MediaServices say everything is above board as per “license # LS-3?-03-79 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society”.
Under the license terms, “MediaServices pays license fees for all the materials subject to the Law of the Russian Federation On Copyright and Related Rights,” it states.
“All the materials are available solely for personal use and must not be used for further distribution, resale or broadcasting.”
It also states: “Users are held liable for the use and distribution of the MediaServices site information materials according to local legislation.”
The Moscow City Prosecutor’s office has until March 7 to decide whether or not to to act on the police department’s [read IFPI’s] recommendation and just to be sure, the IFPI has also submitted its own formal complaint to the prosecutor’s office, adds CNET.
Think of the money the cartel and its investors could be raking in if it smartened up and started offering the complete contents of its catalogues at 10 to 20 cents per download through the exisiting corporate music sites, and all the others that woudl spring up like mushrooms if it prices were fair.
Instead, the cartel members, EMI, UMG, Sony BMG and Warner, flog the same, boring cookie-cutter selections to the same, boring cookie-cutter sites at prices which force them to try to charge $1 and up per mp3.
Naturally, no one’s buying and the cartel’s response is to try to sue online music lovers into doing so.
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See:-
criminal copyright – MP3s for pennies? Russian cops say no, CNETÂ News, February 22, 2005
license # LS-3?-03-79 – Downloads: 1 cent a pop, p2pnet, April 28, 2004
smartened up – The Sound of Russian Music, p2pnet, February 15, 2005
February 24th, 2005 at 2:41 am
Replace the word mp3 with teathered download.
Every one of these corporate legal sites never provide a single mp3, just all drm infected crap.
February 24th, 2005 at 4:14 am
Big Music verses The Russian Mafia this should be interesting!!!!!
February 24th, 2005 at 6:33 am
Doesn’t p2pnet frequently complain about the rest of the media credulously reporting self-serving stories by outfits like the RIAA and MPAA? Here we have an uninvestigated “story” released to the media by the IFPI, and suddenly it’s all over the news that the doom of allofmp3 is nigh!
February 24th, 2005 at 5:11 pm
Geez, this International Federation of Pornographic Industry outfit is really starting to bug me.
February 25th, 2005 at 5:30 am
I hate to see AllofMP3 die, it is easily my favorite site on the ‘net. But in all honesty, I really wouldn’t mind paying a buck a song from the napsters and itunes of the world if it were’nt for the ridiculous F’ed up DRM crap that basically renders the downloads worthless.
Obviously, Big Music is still ran by a bunch of out of touch, old grey-headed bastards out to squeeze every cent they can. Hopefully some of them will start dropping dead soon and we can get some younger, more tech savvy leaders in there.