Following many unsuccessful attempts by the music industry to bring down the Russian music website allofmp3.com, the music industry started going after its payment partners to make it difficult for consumers to pay the website, since if the customer cannot fund their AllOfMp3 account, they can't download music from it. There was a time when one had a wide variety of payment options, including PayPal, credit card, premium SMS text messages and vouchers. However, its financial partners began withdrawing their payment facilities after getting complaints about copyright infringement.
One of the last readily available methods for one to fund their AllOfMP3 account was a UK based website allofmp3vouchers.co.uk, which allowed European consumers to buy vouchers and then redeem them on the AllOfMP3 website. However, following a police raid earlier this month in the east end of London, the Police have shut down the website and arrested the operator under Section 2 of the Fraud Act 2002, who also sold vouchers over eBay. This is also the first time the new law was used for a copyright-related case. Investigators reckon the website he ran got around the payment issue through the use of various offshore accounts run by AllOfMP3 to transfer its collected funds. The raid involved a seizure of his computer equipment and paper work for further investigation.
The BPI sees this as a significant move to the end of AllOfMP3 by blocking off its remaining payment options, with its BPI chief executive mentioning that music fans should avoid similar voucher schemes that fund illegal services. AllOfMP3 was once considered to be the 2nd most popular music store after iTunes.
Even though AllOfMP3 may be illegally run, it has already proved one thing in that consumers are willing to buy music that is free of copy protection measures, even though the music can be easily copied and distributed. While AllOfMP3’s pricing may have played a factor also, it still performed far better than legal music services such as Napster and Yahoo that offer unlimited downloads for a flat-rate fee.
Thanks to GristyMcFisty for letting us know about this news.
