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Music Site AllofMP3 Under Investigation
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Feb 23, 2005 03:43 AM
from the all-good-things dept.
from the all-good-things dept.
Nick Irelan writes "AllofMP3.com, a Russian music site that is famous due to its low prices, has been accused of copyright infringment. Although the site said it bought licenses, some record companies are claiming that the documents it purchased aren't valid. The Moscow Police Computer Crimes Division has investigated AllofMP3 and the Moscow Prosecuter's office must decide what it will do by March 7th."
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legal side... (Score:3, Insightful)
Is there a way how an online bussiness revenue can be *fully* tracked?
Re:legal side... (Score:3, Funny)
In Soviet Russia... they can send you to Siberia - it's rather hard to get a good broadband connection there...
Re:legal side... (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't live in Russia (I do). And from my point of view its America who is becoming a fascist country.
Parent
Re:legal side... (Score:4, Interesting)
Current situation is quite an interesting one. Putin has done more liberal reforms in economic, than Eltsin did during his second term, but political situation is getting more and more like in USSR.
It's all very complex for me to explain it in a short message
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Re:legal side... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:legal side... (Score:4, Informative)
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The real question is - (Score:4, Interesting)
Will there be a price to pay for us? The legality is quite confusing (and yes, ignorance of the law, no matter how stupid, is no defence) and who knows what will happen to us.....
Me? I got rid of my account and waiting to see whats next......
Re:The real question is - (Score:3, Funny)
lets look at the clues:
1)russian
2)mp3
3)download
4)no drm
-justin (#lp)
Re:The real question is - (Score:5, Insightful)
1) The site claimed they paid the appropriate fees for the copyrighted material in Russia.
2) People who are downloading are downloading for personal use, and not redistributing in the U.S. (or at least I am)
3) U.S. copyright law has a section about imports. This section (in rough terms) says that if you bought it legally in a foreign country, that it is legal for you to use it in the U.S. for personal use, and without further redistribution.
I found (1) to be plausible, and I know (2) is true (because I know my own actions), and I went to read the law on (3). In fact, the only one I didn't have direct knowledge of was (1), although the site itself claimed that it was in compliance, which is a reasonable enough for most people (including me).
So, I'm failing to see how I should "reasonably suspect" this should be illegal. I know if AllofMP3 were in the US it would be illegal (the RIAA would never license the music for so little), but in Russia the laws are different. I'm paying money for a product I can use (Vorbis format music) that is download-only. I don't see how it *should* be illegal. I'm not breaking copyright law, and I don't use P2P to "share" my collection. I just listen at home (and in my car).
I guess maybe the difference is that everyone here expects that they should be routinely screwed by big labels. I believe that "fair use" includes music I can actually use (i.e. copy to different computers and listen on whatever device I happen to buy), as well as be available for a decent price. I'd be happy to pay more than $0.02/MB, but right now, there are no sites that support Linux, offer Vorbis, and have a big selection other than AllofMP3. I use Magnatune, actually, but they are kind of a small operation right now.
Anyway, I ramble. Bottom line: the underground piracy scene for music doesn NOT exist because there isn't sufficient DRM in place. It exists because the price point is simply too high. If we had a site that offered DRM free downloads for $0.10-$0.20 / MB (offering encode-on-the-fly so you could pick your format), a lot of the incentive people have to pirate would simply disappear. Primarily, I think inconvenience drives piracy. This isn't always true, but there would be a profitable market for what I describe. Especially if they kept up their campaign to put a stop to "big distributers" online; if they make it obvious that it is wrong (and punished a few people as they're doing now), and ALSO provide a decent alternative with all the benefits for a reasonable price (whatever, $0.10 - $0.20 a MB seems fine), people will buy. This would be close to $8 at the low end for a 14 track album with tracks averaging 4 MB, and twice that much at the high end.
Parent
Re:The real question is - (Score:3, Funny)
Now,get a lowbuget to Rio,do reconstructive surgery -change you looks,bribe a script kiddie to
get you one of those fake ones; ID,Driver,Pass,you name it,find a safe house and stash food..just maybe
its not TOO late,and you might get away.
Re:The real question is - (Score:5, Insightful)
Sharing copyrighted music is copyright infringement. Downloading music is not.
In addition, they are only investigating allofmp3.com [allofmp3.com]. That does not mean that a judge will actually convict them of a crime.
I will continue to buy from them.
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Downloading music IS illegal (Score:4, Insightful)
Sharing copyrighted music is copyright infringement. Downloading music is not."
THAT my friend depends on where you live.
Parent
Re:The real question is - (Score:5, Insightful)
Downloading is a form of reproduction, and reproduction is an exclusive right of the copyright holder. Uploading is a form of distribution, and distribution is another exclusive right of the copyright holder. So really, you can't do either.
This is all well-settled. For example, Napster was sued on the basis that it helped users download and upload, both being illegal, and that suit was successful, remember.
Current lawsuits have been concentrating on uploaders purely for tactical reasons: they're easier to find, and since they are closer to the head of the snake, as it were, taking down one uploader can take out several leeching downloaders as a bonus, or at least make life more difficult for downloaders as there are fewer sources to download from.
This is exactly why the industry's original attacks were against the people involved in the networks themselves; taking out the network was easier than tracking down users, and it had been hoped that without a network, the users would've been unable to infringe. Only the rise of alternative networks has kept this strategy from working very well, and the upcoming Grokster case may yet result in the remaining networks being taken down.
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Re:The real question is - (Score:5, Insightful)
you wrote:[...] so you were participating in copyright violation. The very fact that you are on Slashdot wipes away any claim of ignorance that you could make, especially with a fairly respectable
It seems to me that you're talking about two different things here.
1. Law (copyright violation)
2. Morals (ignorance)
1. You are right, I'm not from Russia. I'm from Germany. I did not violate any laws. I can't violate Russian laws in Germany, so they don't matter to me. I also didn't violate German law, because it says that I can copy music "soweit nicht zur Vervielfältigung eine offensichtlich rechtswidrig hergestellte Vorlage verwendet wird", which roughly means "if one does not use an obviously illegal copy for duplication". If I buy music from one of the biggest commercial internet music sellers worldwide, I don't use an obviously illegal copy.
In the USA, on the other hand, IIRC nobody has been accused for downloading music, only for sharing (i.e. distributing). So all the US users should be safe, too. IANAL, but if there is no sentential judgment that says otherwise, I'm taking all other statements as spreading FUD.
2. I'm buying CDs all the time. I use allofmp3.com, internet radios and tracks copied from friends for evaluating music and finding new bands that I like. If I like a band, I will then buy their album (new if they are not signed by a RIAA label, used on ebay or amazon marketplace if they are with the RIAA). It's also possible that I didn't get you right and you didn't try to talk about morals at all - if so, please ignore my reasoning #2.
Parent
Re:The real question is - (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? Are we talking about laws or ethics/morals? If the former, of course I must examine the law, if the latter, see my explanation #2, above. Law != justice.
As you now have found out that the site has no license to operate outside of Russia
Actually, I haven't found that out. There has been no legal judgment yet. Not in Germany, not in Russia, not in the USA AFAIK. Please quote a relevant declaration of a judge or attorney.
That nobody has been accused of downloading music doesn't make it right or legal.
Doesn't make it right: see my explanation #2, above. Also: law != justice.
Doesn't make it legal: true. But it doesn't make it illegal either. If you cannot cite a law that actually states the illegality of buying from allofmp3.com, I call it spreading FUD.
Concerning your point #2, as you already said yourself, copyright infringement != stealing. We really don't need to talk about that again.
Parent
Re:The real question is - (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, here we go again, you've been brainwashed by the music-industry.
If you know that by downloading a work that falls under copyright terms which disallow copying, that you are actually making a copy of that work in the process of downloading it, then you ARE INFRINGING COPYRIGHT and you ARE BREAKING A LAW.
No. You can copy all you want for yourself. You can go to the library and photocopy everything. It's legal. In most of the nations anyway. Copyright isn't actually the right to make copies, but the right to publish them.
If you're so heavy on citing the "LAW", I'd suggest you read it first.
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You should read.... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:What is wrong with you lilly livered cowards ?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone cares. The same someone who's suing grandmas and 12 year olds. Just because any person with a decent grip on reality wouldn't care doesn't mean there aren't teams of lawyers salivating at the thought.
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Heise News article (Score:5, Informative)
Babelfish Translation [altavista.com]
I only hope that (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I only hope that (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Where will us Canadians get our music now? (Score:4, Interesting)
What? (Score:5, Funny)
It's not like this is a surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's not like this is a surprise... (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally this means I am happy to pay more money for good quality tracks which I like and less for lower quality ones which I am just checking out.
Allofmp3 beats iTunes (Score:5, Insightful)
Allofmp3 gives you noncompressed downloads, ogg downloads, mp3 in any bitrate you want. No DRM at all. Quick downloads. Now that's something I call customer choice and quality service. Compare that to the louse bitrate of iTunes - 128.
Why is this innovative shop against the "law?" Is this something analogous to the Sklyarov case where US media laws were extended to russia? Why the hell should we be locked into iTunes et al? Whose law was it anyway?
Re:Allofmp3 beats iTunes (Score:3, Insightful)
You're not locked into anything. If you don't like the service, its terms of use, etc., don't use it. Simple as that.
Re:Allofmp3 beats iTunes (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean this "little shop" which takes your money and sells you things for which they have no permission to sell?
You mean this "little shop" that makes money off other people's works without paying those other people? (Note - the performers of the music you download do not get any money from your "purchase". The songwriters get a very small amount, but that's all. Those who perform it get nothing.).
Nope, can't see anything dodgy about that at all...
Parent
Re:Allofmp3 beats iTunes (Score:4, Insightful)
I.e. they may have been scammed, but the case is just starting, nothing have been proved yet.
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Re:Allofmp3 beats iTunes (Score:4, Informative)
I think that the average American consumer is far more honest and ethical than the average large company, American or not. And small companies with integrity have little chance of ever being large companies with integrity.
The real difference is that the large companies can afford herds of lawyers who can help them limit their liabilities. There aren't many large companies out there that won't trample all over your rights if they can make money as a result.
The surprising thing is that so many of the large companies find themselves in hot water so often.
Of course, our Congresscritters have recently passed a law to reduce their liabilities (by making it far more difficult and expensive to keep them honest) with the recent anti-class action lawsuit law.
So now we have large record companies that calculate expenses in such a way as to make it nearly impossible for many recording artists to ever come out ahead. Yet, they keep going with recording artists that can't come out ahead so you know the record companies are making money out of them.
Don't the recording companies now routinely require the artists to assign their copyrights to the record companies before they'll even record the music? I seem to remember reading something about that two or three years ago.
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Re:Allofmp3 beats iTunes (Score:3, Insightful)
Compared with the various 'offical' download services this is one meets my needs as a consumer far better.
Regarding the legality of this service it's worth pointing out that most of the current establ
Re:Allofmp3 beats iTunes (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this innovative shop against the "law?"
It's amazing how many errors you can fit into so few words.
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Considering they had pre-release stuff on there (Score:4, Insightful)
Damnit damnit damnit (Score:4, Interesting)
It may be not so simple (Score:5, Interesting)
Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
But as long as the big labels insist on blowing millions on boosting a few artist and neglecting others it's not going to change.
The music industry is shagged.
Re:Too bad (Score:4, Insightful)
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Legal to import regardless of Russian legality (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Legal to import regardless of Russian legality (Score:5, Informative)
First is that downloading is not importation, it is reproduction, and that therefore any exception permitting for importation is inapplicable. Importation only occurs where a work is fixed in a tangible object (such objects are called copies), and the object itself is brought across a border. Where instead a work is transmitted across a border, and is fixed into a new tangible object at the end -- such as RAM or a hard drive -- reproduction (the act of fixing a work into a copy) has occurred.
Second, note that while some importation as described above is allowed -- not that any occurs in conjunction with allofmp3 -- it is still generally illegal unless certain conditions are met. For example, if the copy sought to be imported was made in the US, then it could be re-imported. Or if it is imported with the permission of the US rightsholder. Or if it is imported for personal use AND was made in a way that, had it been made where US law applied, it would not have infringed against the US rightsholder (i.e. making whatever oddities of Russian law it was made under irrelevant).
So actually, obvious bootlegs generally cannot be lawfully imported. They may slip through, US borders not being all that tightly controlled. But again, no one is really importing anything from allofmp3, so this is a moot point.
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Why would you use allofmp3.com? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you either don't care about copyright or do not believe in the current copyright regime, your most important goal is just to download music. In that case, why would you use allofmp3.com when you could get the same music off filesharing networks for free?
If you believe that, regardless of the pleasantness of the current system, the artists (or the company the artists have chosen to represent them) should still be compensated for their work, then allofmp3.com should not be compatible with your stance. You know that they exist because of a quirk in copyright law and that they are not paying anybody anything, except perhaps some Russian licensing board.
So the way I see it, either you are wasting money by not downloading the mp3 yourself, or you are wasting money by paying allofmp3.com instead of the record company. The only audience who should be ok with this, therefore, are those for whom legality is more important than convenience or morality. Am I missing something big here?
Re:Why would you use allofmp3.com? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Why would you use allofmp3.com? (Score:5, Insightful)
How people can believe that paying a small amount of money to the composers/writers of the music allows them rights to any performance of that music is beyond my comprehension.
Me. I did briefly use Napster but got fed up with the variable quality and availability of music that went back to buying more CDs. I've even ripped from vinyl and tape. I have bought a few songs from iTMS but nothing like the number on CDs.
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Copyright is a corrupted law. (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you slashdot, that's a gorgoeus quote to put at the bottom of the page.
The law in this area is broken - copyright was created to provide an incentive to create, but the law has been twisted by the rich to rob the poor.
Until the law is fixed to protect the comman man, those of us who attempt to adhere to the law can protest the corruption by using this legal download service which does not support the rich and corrupt. Without it, there is no way to protest except to boycott or break the law.
Globalization... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm tired of the corps having thier cake and eating it too. And I consider myself libertarian, so that should tell you something. Corporations, like Copyrights, are SUPPOSED to be part of a balance of power between them and the rest of us. We are supposed to benefit as well. The balance has been lost.
Re:Russian Licenses only (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Russian Licenses only (Score:5, Informative)
"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."
Apparently, you just pay them a fee and you're 'licensed' to distribute anything you want.
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Re:Russian Licenses only (Score:5, Informative)
I also found that its not a goverment orginization but part of a company called ZETA corporation. Which is a company of IP lawyers. They also run all the websites related to copyright in russia. roms.ru copyright.ru and several otehrs.
I dont know, that doesnt make them illegitimate, but there are questions.
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Re:what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The kind of "loser" who actually cares about consistant, quality audio, encoded in the format of their choice (which, in the case of this "loser", is generally not MP3).
Likewise, the kind of "loser" who has better things to do with their time than sift through P2P networks trying to weed out the quality from the crap, or searching and re-searching to find a complete album; or the kind of "loser" who would like to have at least some kind of respect for copyright law.
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Re:It's obvious what was happened (Score:4, Insightful)
--
burning karma is fun
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Re:Damns..... (Score:5, Funny)
STFU album parasite!
Even if AllOfMp3 is legal, by buying our albums offshore, we take away the jobs of hard-working Americans in the recording industry, little people who toil for as little as 70 or 100 thousand dollars a year.
It's willful moral blindness to rationalize this kind of assault on the American worker as "watching the bottom line" or "getting lean and mean" or as "fiduciary responsibility" to your shareholders -- especially when almost all of the your savings on albums (as much as $15 per CD) goes into your own pocket and the pockets of your close cronies in the form of 'executive benefits', 'bonuses' and 'golden parachutes'.
Can you imagine the hue and cry if an American company did the sort of thing you're doing by buying from AllOfMp3.com? If an American company did business overseas just because that was cheaper, and put most of the savings into top executives" salaries and benefits, while at the same time causing American jobs to be lost?
Why that sort of thing wouldn't be tolerated for an instant, not by anyone who truly loves America! Congress would pass all sorts of new "Intellectual Property" laws to put an end to it, and the FCC would mandate that all TVs sold to the American public be modified to include hardware to prevent such theft. Because our leaders truly care about the little guy!
So for shame! Stop your overseas out sourcing of your entertainment budget, and remember we don't do that sort of things to our fellow Americans!
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