RIAA Declares Victory Over AllofMP3, Drops Lawsuit
Written by enigmax on May 26, 2008The RIAA has declared victory over Russian music download store AllofMP3, which it accused of the illegal distribution of millions of copyright tracks. The site, which was declared legal by a court last October, no longer offers music - but has spawned dozens of fully operational spin-offs. Victory for RIAA? Not quite.
When pressure from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the United States government caused the Kremlin to take down AllofMP3 in mid 2007, the RIAA must’ve been jumping for joy.
Before the shutdown, AllOfMP3 had around 6 million users who were able to download songs and albums for a tiny fraction of the price of authorized alternatives such as iTunes. The RIAA said it could not live with this situation.
In December 2006, the RIAA filed a complaint against the site, stating that AllofMP3 sold millions of tracks to the public yet gave no money back to their artists.
According to a report, on May 20th 2008 the RIAA filed papers in federal court, Manhattan, dropping its copyright infringement lawsuit against AllofMP3.
“The site is now defunct and out of business, the result of a successful anti-piracy initiative,” Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman told Bloomberg.
Notably, Lamy did not mention a fully operational site set up by the same people as AllofMP3, called Mp3Sparks. Different name, same tunes, no lawsuit.
AllofMP3 was blocked by a Swedish ISP back in 2006 when it got caught up in the anti-AllofMP3 hysteria but later retracted its stance.
In August 2007, AllofMP3 was acquitted in Russia of all charges that had been put forward by IFPI and on October 24th 2007, a district court in Moscow confirmed the innocent verdict.
“They [RIAA] never correctly commenced the proceeding in the first place,” said John Crossman, who represented the site’s owner, MediaServices LLC.
“Maybe it was a rare triumph of good sense.”
In the meantime, dozens of similar sites operate in Russia, delivering super-cheap music to the masses in much the same way as AllofMP3 did.
Victory for the RIAA? Not quite.
Previously: BitTorrent Tracker Insider Infiltrates Anti-Piracy Lobby
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63 Responses
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Kiss it, RIAA…
the anti-piracy gangs FAIL!
you can NEVER win over the pirates!
looks like riaa’s strategy is to ovoerrun people in court with high fees, wonder how much money they have since there are over 50 million people downloading illegaly.
christ, we should let the world hear our voices.
they shouldn’t be charging for the music anyway.
i dunno man. in my eyes pay-for-mp3 sites are just wrong…
it’s the hydra at work, baby
Oh no, somebody is selling my musakz for less $ than me, now I can’t fill my fatcat pockets with money made on the overpriced music sold by the major labels :-(
Better that they waste their time and money on these kinds of websites than torrent trackers.
yeas to donate and help site, no to pay for mp3
Well,
Don’t understand…. why do you have to pay if monney is not going to anybody? It’s pure robbery. Let’s get those mp3 for free et buy some show tickets instead.
This made me go LOL, when I tried to access Mp3Sparks I got an error message from ESET Nod32 Antivirus:
“The web page is on the list of websites with potentially dangerous content.”
First time it happens.
If I remenber it right, AllofMP3 did pay copyright fees to Russian copyright organisation but RIAA forgot to collect them.
Those sites are disgusting, charging for music and keeping all the profit. At least the RIAA remembers to pay SOME artists.
allofmp3 was operating under a flaw of russian law, which was considering the site as a radio.
Therefore they could sell the mp3s for nearly nothing, since all they had to pay was a fee like any radio broadcaster.
So the site was completely and perfectly legal in all extents, but then came some “blackmailing” campaign with the WTO as bully.
Another proof the RIAA are just a gang of mafia-style fuckups.
The last words made me laugh out loud..
AllofMP3 was operating legally in Russia do to there was no laws on paying money from sales to the foreign artists, only to local artists, but now there are new tons of anti-piracy laws
“In December 2006, the RIAA filed a complaint against the site, stating that AllofMP3 sold millions of tracks to the public yet gave no money back to their artists.”
definition of irony !
Just picture this:
Hitler to Churchill:
“I got bored with this war nonsense (I’m loosing anyway).
Therefore i declare myself victor, now fuck off.
I won. Got it ?”
Pffft,
loosers.
They take one down, 20 more appear haha
‘20 more appear hahahaha’
why would you want 20 more to appear. They offered albums which are gneerally manufactured chart rubbish for a fee. When you could easily go to a website and download it free somewhere else. Or if you want to pay, pay it to the artist who created it.
allofmp3 just made all pirates look like a bunch of douchebags
I wonder how much money allofmp3 dudes made from that or did it all go to server maintance
I mean It’s the same if you buy a track from there or download it from the interweb.. in either of cases Label nor Artist don’t get any money from it.
Now I wonder what are people’s motives to use such service.
Is it same to buy a track from there as it is to download from some free p2p service and afterwards donate money for operating costs.
Anyways I hope just people buy tickets to shows and are also willing to pay more because cost of live act is going up as the gas prices are scoaring everywhere.
FUCK CORPORATE MUTHAFUCKAS.
A BUNCH OF ASSHOLES CONTROL THE WAY MOST OF US LIVE OUR LIVES. IT’S PATHETIC.
P.S. SORRY ABOUT CAPS, BUT I LOVE WRITING IN CAPS !
AllofMP3 is equal to some Chinese corner man selling pirated music and movies. The artists and studios get nothing. Anyone in the scene (or from BitTorrent sites for that matter) despise people who get content for free and then turn around and sell it. So how is this OK? These Russian bastards are probably downloading this stuff from the same places you or I get it. Even if they do initially buy the CDs I fail to see how this has anything to do with what TorrentFreak stands for. Share? Absolutely! Resell? Fuck no! Lowlifes!
@5
Well, there is a simple solution to that, isn’t there? allofmp3 and all such pay-sites should just give the money they earn to the artists as a royalty. That is all.
What the RIAA should do is to demand a royalty from the money that they earn. I mean, the simple solution to piracy is just to give the money they earn to the artists. If they do not earn any money, then there would be not any given, of course, but the people should decide what they price they are going to set it at, whether for a charge, or for free.
Good. This is what RIAA should spend their time on. Real pirates.
From what I read on the internet, it seemed like the main reason why allofmp3 was so popular was that people didn’t actually know that the artists didn’t get any of the money.
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