heystoopid used our news submit to tell us "Oh well, it had to happen. With the Swedish Government"s current vain attempt to takedown "Piratebay" now facing a very severe local political backlash (and could quite possibly truncate the the political career of the government minister responsible for the debacle, from the current raging Swedish Political Wildfire!). BPI has now declared a fully fledged war on the popular Russian music site, for being the source of the second most important music downloading site "Allofmp3" to Apple"s ITunes!
Sadly, looking back in history, attacking the Russians, is like poking a big bad bear with a very short stick, whilst the beast is slow to anger, the return blow has proven very lethal to the poker! For a lot depends, on what real perceived trade benefits the Russians stand to get from being a member the "WTO" (the cynical local Russian population are not really convinced that it will be to their personal benefit yet!)! Time will be, very telling here!
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The Russia-based site, which offers albums to download for as little as £1, claims to be licensed. The BPI said it planned to sue allofmp3.com in the UK courts but that users would not be prosecuted. Allofmp3.com is the second most popular download site in the UK, accounting for 14% of downloads, a survey has said. BPI spokesman Matt Phillips said: "There is no doubt it is totally illegal."It is illegal for them to sell the recordings in Russia or anywhere else because they are not licensed, and UK consumers are infringing copyright law because they are making illegal copies from an unlicensed source. |
I love the model of AllofMP3. They sell the music without any DRM by the megabyte. You can select the format and even the bitrate, based upon your sense of hearing or playback device. I just hope that they can see that they have gotten so big, that they are a threat to the current stifling models offered around the "free world". If only they would charge a bit more, and then make darn sure to pay the artists or copyright holders. If you could get a decent product that didn't come shackled with controls, it would be a blessing! In addition, it would cause a great blow to come to all forms of DRM! I would hope that music lovers everywhere would be willing to pay the extra amount to make this website continue to flourish. The only problem may be that even if what AllofMP3 are doing inside Russia is "legal", they already admit on their website, under "legal info" courtesy of a Javascript popup, that laws in other countries would not look favorably upon their business model. Here is an exerpt from their site:
Is it legal to download music from AllOFMP3.com?
The availability over the Internet of the ALLOFMP3.com materials is authorized by the license # LS-3М-05-03 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society (ROMS) and license # 006/3M-05 of the Rightholders Federation for Collective Copyright Management of Works Used Interactively (FAIR). In accordance to the licenses' terms MediaServices pays license fees for all materials downloaded from the site subject to the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights". All these materials are solely for personal use. Any further distribution, resale or broadcasting are prohibited.
The works available from ALLOFMP3.com are protected by the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights" and are for personal use of a buyer. Commercial use of such material is prohibited. Recording, copying, distribution on any media is possible only upon special consent of a Rightholder.
The user bears sole responsibility for any use and distribution of all materials received from AllOFMP3.com. This responsibility is dependent on the national legislation in each user's country of residence. The Administration of AllOFMP3.com does not possess information on the laws of each particular country and is not responsible for the actions of foreign users.
Ross Perot was arguably a bit of a nut, but one time he said something that hit home with me and it went something like this: "Never ask yourself, is it legal or illegal? Simply ask yourself as a leader, is it right or wrong. If it's wrong, don't do it. You keep life pretty simple that way."
As it stands now, the only thing that is happening is that certain people are making money from other peoples work without (allegedly) giving a compensation in return. It may not be AllofMp3's fault, but, someone is not following through. This it seems, is even worse than the free downloading of artist materials over P2P. At least in those paradigms, no one is profiting from the action, while just possibly, the artist is getting some well deserved recognition and hopefully a sale or a visit to a concert by a devoted fan. AllofMp3 is insult to injury to an artist. (I don't give a damn about the labels)
Let's hope that the Russians can turn the highly successful AllofMP3 website into a system that gives credit where credit is due and not let the political powers of the capitalistic world, drive this model into extinction! AllofMP3 is our best shot at a DRM free, Internet downloadable product. Lead the way.
You can read the article at the source, by following this link to the BBC!
Source: BBC
