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December 21, 2006 at 09:00:00 AM | more stories by this author
The world's four largest music companies accuse the Russian download site for copyright infringement, seeking $150,000 per alleged violation.
Maverick Russian music download site AllofMP3.com had already faced a lawsuit in the UK, had credit giants Visa and Mastercard yank their payment support, and saw the US government say that Russia's entry into the WTO hinged on its ability to shut the site down.
AllofMP3 home page.
The other shoe dropped yesterday, when the four major record labels filed a copyright infringement suit against the site's owner Mediaservices. From June through October alone, the RIAA claims more than 11 million songs were downloaded illegally from the site by US customers, and the suit seeks damages at a rate of $150,000 per alleged copyright violation--for a total of a whopping $1.65 trillion.
In a complaint filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Recording Industry Association of America, on behalf of major labels EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music, and Warner Music, accused Web site AllofMP3.com of being a "notorious online black market" and a "poster child" for Internet music piracy." The lawsuit was filed against Moscow-based Mediaservices, which owns AllofMP3 and another music site, allTunes.com.
Unlike the peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing services that have faced the music industry's legal wrath over the years, AllofMP3 charges for downloads, but does so at a fraction of the market rate, charging less than $1 for full albums.
"[The] defendant's entire business...amounts to nothing more than a massive infringement of plaintiffs' exclusive rights under the Copyright Act and New York law," the industry said in the complaint.
The site has argued that it pays royalties through ROMS, the Russian agency that collects royalties. The RIAA has said that it does not recognize ROMS as a collecting agency for the labels and has never received any royalty payments from the site.
The US Department of Commerce calls AllofMP3.com the world's highest-volume online seller of pirated music, collecting annual revenue in excess of $30 million from its 5.5 million subscribers.
16 Comments
Oldest First | Newest FirstIf an album costs 2 - 3 dollars I buy loads of them
And most of it is to get CD copies of music that I already bought on vinyl.....
If I could return a vinyl album and get a CD or MP3 duplicate for a few bucks then I would look more gently on the big companies
When a site offers music downloads for $0.10 a song, the music industry isn't making it's money. When a site offers a digital product that the copyright holder owns the rights to, it's illegal to purchase that content, just like if you buy a part of an endangered animal from a poacher.
I'd like to see every site like this closed down. Legitimate pay sites will eventually host all of the songs we want as they compete fairly and with the proper funds going to the music industry. If you want to download content illegally from a site like AllofMP3.com, fine. Just don't pretend you aren't fully aware how illegal it is and don't be mad when the music industry attempts to protect its livelihood.
Virgin, for example, is $1.55 compared to 15c on the AllofMP3, but I don't begrudge that compared to the cost of a CD single in the shops. If they've had a track I wanted, I've bought it from them. If a download site doesn't have a legal/royalties statement, I won't use it, but now, if you can't even trust that? :-(
I know another site like ths too. but if I tell people and more and more people join the same fate might fall upong it so "I aint saying nothin"!