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Russia Agrees to Shut Down AllofMP3.com at U.S. Request – or did it?

November 29, 2006 at 7:36 pm - by Dale Dietrich

Categories: Big Media v Internet • Copyright • DRM-Free Services • International Legal Reform • Lobbying • New Business Models • Piracy

Text of Agreement
Visa and Mastercard halting service to AllofMP3 effectively shut it down. In the face of the credit card departures, AllofMP3.com said it would move to an advertising supported model. Now Russia and the U.S. appear to have reached an agreement to shut it down – or did they?  

ars technica and others are reporting that AllofMP3 says it will not be shut down. Instead it says Russia agreed to certain copyright reforms that AllofMP3.com says it will comply with. Even if this is true, AllofMP3 could never be what it was. If the reported agreement is implemented by Russia, any new AllofMP3.com would be as close to its current incarnation as today's Napster is to its original form.

As of the time of this post, AllofMP3.com was still up and running.

Dale's Comment: This is a sad day of sorts. While the legality of AllofMP3 was always murky, its success (second in world-wide sales only to iTunes) was a clear example of the fact that consumers are willing to pay a fair price for music from a site that services the users needs, if they are given fair rights to use the music they purchase. In the case of AllofMP3.com the user could chose the format they wished to purchase and there were no restrictions on the use they could make of the music.  I look forward to the day the major labels learn this lesson and start offering DRM-free music for sale to honest users under fair terms.

Sources: TechCrunch | CNet | ars technica | Inquirer | The Register | ABC News | ComputerWorld | PC Magazine | MOSNews | MP3.com | Techwhack | Techdirt | ZDNet | Macworld | DailyTech

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  • Darren

    Anyone asked the artists / songwriters what they think of this? I doubt it….. being a songwriter myself I look forward to the day when I can sell my songs direct to the public and not have to go through record labels as I see no benefit in using them as in my experience they have never had mine or any artists best interests to hand when supposedly fighting for my so called rights to not get ripped off by the end consumer.I only get paid roughly $.10 / $.15 per song from them anyway. ( I say rough as it varies a great deal) but the point is that I would be happy enough if I got paid direct from the consumer for as much as they think it is worth. Unfortunately generally speaking the end user doesn’t know how much work goes into writing the music that they love to hear. I agree that music in it’s current form a.k.a the CD is expensive and a lot are resorting to digital downloads I couldn’t be happier as it enables us writers / artists to have the opportunity to sell direct to the consumer and cut out the middle man but I would like to point out that there is still a cost to do this but of course it’s no where near the cost of a CD to buy. It’s a shame about allofmp3 i’m not sure if they were aquiring the music legally or not I would hope they were and were paying the artists / writers the money they deserve. I think this whole file sharing business is not really going to be solved so why don’t we just learn to cope with it and try and move on to more positive things. I think it’s great that people would even want to listen to something I’ve created let alone pay for the privilege. I would love to just give my music away but obviously myself and my family have to eat so I am grateful for the fact that people pay for my music. What I don’t agree with is the fact that some record label exec or publisher gets money off of my back for in my mind is little or no work at all on there behalf. There I’ve said my piece thank you to the 1 person who may read this and let me finish by saying that I would gladly allow allofmp3 to sell my songs on my behalf as I think it is a great service to it’s customers but would just say that I really hope that they are in fact doing it legally. Thanks.

  • http://creditcardoffers.com.au/ credit card

    Good decision made by the russian authority and the US. I heard that Allofmp3 is doing illegal activities that's why visa and mastercard cut their contact w/ Allofmp3. It's really nice that they do that but i cared about the artist and the songwriter, it'll be a lost to their part.