This is really not cool. I was really hoping that it was legal. I have got a lot of inexpensive non-DRM music from them. I really thought it was legal because: 1. Russia Cops hadn’t shut them down yet. 2. The RIAA wasn’t publicly up in arms about it. I guess RIAA thought if they made a stink, it would just attract more people to it. Apparently “justice” in Russia just moves slowly. The police just finished their investigation and are recommending to prosecutors that they prosecute them for copyright infringement.
The issues in this case are slightly more than slightly fuzzy; Russian copyright licenses are administered by an organization called the Russian Copyright Society. I’m having a bit of a hard time understanding this thing (My Russian isn’t very good; actually, it’s nyet-existant), but this much I have gathered from the ever-knowledgeable know-it-alls at Slashdot: The owner of the copyright has little or no recourse in setting prices. That organization sells licenses for content to companies that wish to distribute it. I think the Russian gov purposely didn’t move on this very fast because it brings hard currency into the country and doesn’t hurt them. This is what one Russian MP3 site says:
“The Audio1 Services are licensed in accordance with the Licensing Agreement and the License # LS-3M-04-164, issued by the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society. All respective copyrights owners, including songwriters, authors, composers, artists, music publishers and recording companies are fully compensated through the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society www.roms.ru, which in accordance with the Law of the Russian Federation “On Copyright and Related Rights” is entitled to issue licenses on behalf of different copyright owners and pay them license fees.”
A Russian digital-music site offering high-quality song downloads for just pennies apiece is the target of a criminal copyright investigation by the local police, recording industry groups said Tuesday.
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. 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.
“We have consistently said that AllofMP3.com is not licensed to distribute our members’ repertoire in Russia or anywhere else,” Igor Pozhitkov, regional director of IFPI Moscow–part of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry–said in a statement. “We are pleased that the police are bringing this important case to the attention of the prosecutor.”
I had blogged about AllofMP3.com earlier, as had marv.
Update: marv does an update on WinAmp closing the Napster conversion hole and the AllofMP3.com investigation.
Original post 2/23/05 at 12:43:50.
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