AllofMP3 Voucher Resellers Quit After Police Raid

Broohaha writes "Europeans who resell AllofMP3.com vouchers are quitting the business after a UK raid against one prominent reseller there. An Ars Technica article talks to several of them about their situations. 'Until a few days ago, I had never heard of the IFPI [the international music trade group],' said one reseller. 'But yes, I am concerned about them now. Although my attorney assures me that reselling gift certificates bought from AllOfMP3.com isn't breaking any laws, it isn't worth the possibility of engagement with their legal machine.' The music industry seems determined to choke off AllofMP3's funding, no matter how small the source."

The RIAA wins then...

I guess the RIAA wins... I'll just have to go back to BitTorrent...

Re:The RIAA wins then...

Actually, that's exactly what I was recommending to my friends to whom I previously recommended Allofmp3. I don't have the time and energy to keep troubleshooting their problems with music file formats from various legit stores that don't play on their mp3 players, and Allofmp3 was the only significant source of regular mp3 files that worked; now it's back to music piracy again...

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AllofMP3 was operating on dark grey margins of legality, so it's not as if you are just now starting piracy, you were pretty much supporting such an operation. They stretch the loophole a lot. The licensing clause they are operating under was one that al

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I didn't say Allofmp3 was legal; in fact, I warned people I recommended the site to that they operated in a gray area. However, they were still willing to pay for songs that had a guaranteed quality, were easy to find and worked on their devices. Now tha

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There is at least one alternative [musicmp3.ru] to AllOfMP3.com.

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"I didn't say Allofmp3 was legal; in fact, I warned people I recommended the site to that they operated in a gray area. However, they were still willing to pay for songs that had a guaranteed quality, were easy to find and worked on their devices. Now tha

Re:Shhhh

And we ALL know the RIAA supports full compensation for artists as well. Oh, wait.

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"parent is modded funny, but its an informative sort of statement.. do some research and find out how much, exactly, artists are compensated for cd sales by the riaa.. i think you'll find several conflicting points of data, all well below a "reasonable" a

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now it's back to music piracy again...

AllOfMP3 was piracy, you were just paying for it. Just because it dressed itself up in a professional website and pretended to be something else doesn't change that.

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AllOfMP3 was piracy, you were just paying for it. Just because it dressed itself up in a professional website and pretended to be something else doesn't change that.

It's my understanding that AllOfMP3 is legally operating within Russia, that the various

actionable?

Okay, first, IANAL. But I know that in the US, harassment of a company's business partners can be considered actionable under RICO. Anyone know if AllOfMP3 may be able to bring a suit against IFPI?

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Anyone know if AllOfMP3 may be able to bring a suit against IFPI?

They already have in the country of Eurasia.

Seriously, the world today is almost like the wild west where there really isn't any law except for those that think there is law and that they are

See the comment in the summary?

Although my attorney assures me that reselling gift certificates bought from AllOfMP3.com isn't breaking any laws, it isn't worth the possibility of engagement with their legal machine

I would love to see how the astroturfers here spin this, go on.

At this point doing things the RIAA doesn't like is basically necessary civil disobedience.

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Civil disobedience also means going to jail and suffering the consequences of your actions.

Civil disobedience!

At this point doing things the RIAA doesn't like is basically necessary civil disobedience.

Yes, because the right to share somebody else's creations with friends and strangers is unalienable.

Saharov [wikipedia.org] and Ghandi [wikipedia.org] would've been proud of your stand.

my attorney in the UK ?

since when has anybody in the UK called a solicitor or lawyer/barrister an "attorney"
that word is used almost exclusivly by Americans, was this reseller an American in the UK or was the "quote" edited for a US audience

smells like bullshit here in London

Re:my attorney in the UK ?

Mod parent up! UK people rarely use the term 'attorney'. They are 'solicitors' or 'barristers' or even (less often) 'lawyers.'

The whole story seems like astroturfing designed to scare the bejesus out of the remaining resellers.

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The whole story seems like astroturfing designed to scare the bejesus out of the remaining resellers.

Whatever works. They don't care. It is clearly up the us to be more careful how we spend our money. To keep it our of their hands, don't buy their product.

In the US...

we call them leeches, parasites,...

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Note: The article referred to a seller in Europe. This does not necessarily mean the UK, just a reseller who may travel through the UK now and then, but is based in the EU (which covers a lot of ground).
There are a goodly many English Teachers who teach

Legal system problem

This quote has the essence of the biggest problem in the 20th century, boiled down to one simple sentence:

Although my attorney assures me that reselling gift certificates bought from AllOfMP3.com isn't breaking any laws, it isn't worth the possibility of engagement with their legal machine.'

I would paraphrase that to:

Although what I am doing is legal, I dare not engage the legal system

Which makes justice impossible. No justice, kiss freedom goodbye.

Re:Legal system problem

Which makes justice impossible.

Almost there.

Which makes justice impossible. for those who aren't wealthy .

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Which makes justice impossible. for those who aren't wealthy.

You keep using that word [reference.com]. I do not think it means what you think it means.

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You keep quoting that movie. I do not think it's as relevant as you think it is.

Try using more words next time, and as a bonus feel free to make some of them your own!

sigh

the selling of gift certificates isnt illegal but the use of them is frowned upon and thus anyone selling them is brought into the whole mess. The RIAA and company represent a group of interests that foolishly cut off any legal way to try out music or be locked in with DRM. that is why they lose cash, you cant screw people like that and expect to make MORE cash forever. if they were smart they would realize that they'd make more money by giving people the legal freedom to listen to music more freely than current and piracy would probably decrease as well- why pirate what is easy and cheap to begin with?

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"Is it me or is the whole DRM, RIAA, ect getting out of hand realy fast, there attacking people in other contries."

Huh? This article was about the IFPI; they're an international trade group operating in a whole bunch of countries.

If this were about t

"The music industry seems determined to choke off"

To me, "The music industry" seems to have become the bane of civil and modern life. As if there exist no problems in the world, no wars, no poverty, no economic issues but fucking more-cash problems of the "music industry". makes one start to treat individuals involved in this "music industry" like lowlifes in everyday life.

Re:"The music industry seems determined to choke o

To me, "The music industry" seems to have become the bane of civil and modern life. As if there exist no problems in the world, no wars, no poverty, no economic issues but fucking more-cash problems of the "music industry". makes one start to treat individuals involved in this "music industry" like lowlifes in everyday life.

- emphasis mine

"Makes one start to treat individuals involved in this 'music industry' like the lowlifes that they really are."

There, that sounds better

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i said "everyday life", because i didnt mean it as a metaphor, i really meant i would start treating these people like shit in everyday life.

Re:"The music industry seems determined to choke o

mea culpa - I just read an article about NIN's Trent Reznor. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,217 41980-5006024,00.html [news.com.au] and he's pretty blunt about it. These people you reference ARE lowlifes, and this is coming from one of their clients.

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well. if people oust them from society, they would have to reconsider their crap.

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"To me, "The music industry" seems to have become the bane of civil and modern life. As if there exist no problems in the world, no wars, no poverty, no economic issues but fucking more-cash problems of the "music industry". makes one start to treat indivi

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The problem lies in your phrase "highly questionable". This selling is legal (my attorney assures me that reselling gift certificates bought from AllOfMP3.com isn't breaking any laws) but the corporations involved have deemed it "highly questionable". (it

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As far as I can tell, if you don't download music you don't own or aren't getting from a highly questionable source then you won't have any problems.

hmmm.

like having innovation, free speech and competitio not being stifled by insane laws that are passed through music industry funding ?

like, "intellectual property" exploitation that walks in the verge of banning people from using certain words

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To me, "The music industry" seems to have become the bane of civil and modern life.

Really? Musicians, and the people they pay/hire/work with to handle the business end of what they do (so they can concentrate on making music) are the 'bane of civil and

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There is no difference.

There is an enormous difference. Follow a few successful artists' business careers. They work (in starving artist mode), and some of them produce something with enough critical and commercial draw that they make some real money. M

The Fraud Act 2006 Requires Intent

...so I'm not sure whether these people were potentially "guilty". See Fraud Act 2006 [opsi.gov.uk]. We need advice from a lawyer.

Ironic

The RIAA is trying to stop allofmp3.com (operating under certain Russian copyright licensing laws) for doing the exact same thing that they are pushing to be allowed to do right here in the US. The RIAA wants to collect fees (sell if you will) for music played on radio stations (regular radio stations) regardless of whether or not the music is actually copyrighted by any of their members. This means that if a public radio station plays a few RIAA songs, but the majority are indie labels or any music not owned by the RIAA members, the RIAA gets a cut as if it was.

One can certainly argue against the moral rightness of the way the Russian copyright licensing laws work, since no American artist will ever see any of the fees that the Russian copyright organization collects. But certainly the RIAA is clearly acting morally wrong as well.

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But certainly the RIAA is clearly acting morally wrong as well.

And you think that is somehow ironic? How ironic.

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Actually, any artist can collect fees from Russian music collecting agency. And Russian collecting agency is also a non-profit organization.

Re:Ironic

"Actually, any artist can collect fees from Russian music collecting agency. And Russian collecting agency is also a non-profit organization."

Okay, pretend you're a moderately successful artist. You sold 1,000 copies of your album on iTunes last month for which you netted about $1K. You suspect that allofmp3 also sold about 1,000 copies of your album last month (you have no way of knowing... artists have asked allofmp3 to release sales data, but they refuse). They sold them for $0.60 each, to which the collecting society perhaps got about $0.06, of which you might see $0.04. So, somewhere out there, somebody has $40.00 for you.

After finding ROMS' site and the English version thereof, you get to this page [www.roms.ru] before you hit a wall. If says that if you had "concluded an agreement" with ROMS (which you most likely have not), you are entitled to compensation, but ROMS does not tell you how you can go about this. You might note that by comparison, the corresponding page on ASCAP [ascap.com] is much more useful. This is because ASCAP is run by and for artists, and is looking out for your best interests. Unlike ROMS, they're not a front for a pirate site.

At what point do you give up, and admit that the Russians effectively get to keep your $40?

Re:Ironic

Yes, ROMS's English site sucks.

I can read Russian, so I've read their contract: http://www.roms.ru/download/authors/1.doc [www.roms.ru] It says that you can collect fees retroactively.

A typical CD costs about $5 in Russia (including licensed CDs from Western artists). Generally, CD contains about 10 songs, so it's 50 cents per song (notice, it's less expensive than AoMP3). One usually gets less than 10% from actual CD price, so artists in Russia can get more from ROMS than from actual CD sales.

Russian Law

The central question is whether AllOfMP3.com is operating legally under Russian law. Or, given the totalitarian/anarchy that is modern Russia, whether a service that does what AllOfMP3.com does, operating as it does in Russia (and operating outside Russia only on the Internet), is at risk of takedown by Russian authorities (not including their mafias, but that's a basic risk of doing business in Russia).

If AllOfMP3.com doesn't survive long enough to be tested in Russian court (and subsequently in Russian police offices), we might never know whether another bizmodel or just other outside-Russian operations could survive to be tweaked into a way that survives.

whoops

Meanwhile, allofmp3's servers are painfully slow due to the huge influx of traffic from all of the publicity this is giving them.

www.mp3sugar.com

Out with the old - and in the the new - http://www.mp3sugar.com [mp3sugar.com]
Only downer with this is that all music is 256kbps

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These guys are doing nothing illegal

You say it as if it was a fact. It would appear the law thinks there's a good chance they were.

If I sold vouchers redeemable at your local fence, would I be doing anything illegal? It's not a distinction I'd like to a

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God I love sound logic !!

Good. You should think about using some. The social contract that you have implicitly entered into by being a citizen of said state forbids such activity to its citizens, and allows it, under a certain set of circumstances, to c

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However, the music industry has cleverly bankrolled legislation to make sure they don't have to uphold their end of the deal, to wit, placing the copyrighted material into the public domain after a limited time.

The US Supreme Court, ruling on the legalit

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The US Supreme Court ... clearly stated that ... "life of the author plus 70 years" did indeed meet the definition of "limited time" and was therefore constitutional.

You know, that's great. It must be nice to be the one party able to re-negotiate the te

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The US Supreme Court, ruling on the legality of the Bono copyright extension of a few years ago, very clearly stated that while their ruling should not in any way be interpreted to mean that copyright extension was a good idea, that "life of the author plu