music_news 91 posts

AllofMP3.com welcomes the decision of record labels to voluntarily dismiss their $1,65 trln lawsuit against the site.

On May 23 Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi SA and EMI Group Plc. decided to drop their copyright case filed in federal court in Manhattan (Bloomberg.com).

Some time ago the AllofMP3.com services had to be suspended due to litigation.

There’ll be more updates on the development of the situation.

May 23 (Bloomberg) -- Sony BMG Music Entertainment and other record companies dismissed their copyright lawsuit against Russia-based Internet music store AllofMP3.com, which was accused of distributing millions of pirated song files.

Members of the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group, didn't say why they were voluntarily dropping the case in papers filed May 20 in federal court in Manhattan.

``The site is now defunct and out of business, the result of a successful anti-piracy initiative,'' Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the trade group, said today in an e-mail.

The complaint, filed in December 2006, called the site ``a notorious black market'' that made $30 million a year by directing Internet users to music files available for download, without giving any money to the record labels. The other record labels joining the suit with Sony were Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi SA and EMI Group Plc.

The Web site said in August it would reopen after it had been shut by Russia a... read more

On 24 October a district court in Moscow has confirmed the "no copyright infringement" verdict.

Earlier this year, on 15 August 2007 AllofMP3.com was acquitted of all charges brought up by IFPI. Consequently the Federation filed a protest on behalf of the labels. This protest was declined last week. This time IFPI promised to go as far as the Supreme Court.

This was yet another victory for AllofMP3.com in court.


Read more:
Music almost for free (in Russian), Vedomosti
Court rules that AllofMP3.com operated within the law, AllofMP3 Blog

The service will be resumed in the foreseeable future. We are doing our best at the moment to ensure that all our users can use their accounts, top up balance and order music.

On Wednesday, August 15 a district court in Moscow ruled that AllofMP3.com operated within the bounds of Russian law.

The court found no infringement of copyright law. According to the statement from the judge the site had paid a certain amount of the revenue to the right holders in full compliance with the law.

The court found that the investigation initiated by the IFPI had produced insufficient evidence and the conclusion that AllofMP3.com had broken any laws was a premature one.

Read more:
Court acquits AllofMP3.com site owner, Reuters
AllofMP3 founder cleared of copyright violation, The Independent
Russian court acquits former owner of music download site allofmp3.com, The Forbes

At the beginning of December a Swedish ISP decided to block its users in Sweden and Denmark  from accessing AllofMP3.com.

This move received a fair amount of criticism as the Perspektiv Bredband ISP admitted it was a moral and not a legal standpoint.

As a part of a protest campaign against such moral Internet censorship by ISPs Piratebay in turn blocked Perspektiv Bredband customers from accessing the PirateBay BitTorrent tracker.

A week later Perspektiv Bredband had reversed its decision and opened access to AllofMP3.com.

“We made a hasty decision and we withdrew from our mission. We are sorry about this. Together with our new chairman of the board, the management agrees that limiting Internet access is not within the framework of our business,” said Fredrik Winbladh, President of Perspektiv Bredband.


Read more:
Swedish ISP Unblocks... read more

Piratebay has launched a campaign against a Swedish ISP that had decided to block its customers from accessing AllofMP3.com. In turn Piratebay will block the Perspektiv Bredband ISP from accessing the popular PirateBay BitTorrent tracker.

In a statement at piratbyran.org Piratebay insists that the Perspektiv Bredband ISP acted in the interests of powerful media companies rather then in the interests of the customers. “After dialogues with Swedish and Danish anti-piracy organisations Perspektiv Bredband has blocked access of allofmp3.com for both their Swedish and Danish customers. In Sweden there is no legal reason to do so since allofmp3.com is legal to use. Perspektiv Bredband clearly states in their press release that it is a moral and not legal standpoint.”

"Perspektiv Bredband has every right in the world to block whichever site they want on their own net," the statement goes on. "And their customers have every right in the... read more

An English translation of the Danish court decision which ruled that a provider shall block its customers from accessing Allofmp3.com has been posted on the Internet.

In short the provider shall block the site as it’s illegal. The site is illegal because music is “offered for very low price on the website as well as …[because of] the information from the Russian branch of IFPI…” Actually IFPI believes that the body which licensed AllofPM3.com should have asked IFPI first. However IFPI couldn’t prove it neither in Russian nor in any other court. It remains unclear what kind of evidence could persuade the Danish court that Russian legislation has less force than information from IFPI.

Read more:
IFPI vs Tele 2 ---- in English, p2pnet
Danish ISP forced to block customers from AllofMP3.com, AllofMP3 Blogs

In this long dispute between the site and IFPI the latter will try everything to push AllofMP3 out of business. The WTO thing did not work. Russia defends its conditions of entery and its negotiators said this week that unless their conditions are accepted, Russia is not interested. (Just to remind, there was a condition from USA lobbyists – that Russia must shut the site to be able to join WTO).

Another recent attack by IFPI is a civil suit in Denmark against one of the ISPs there. And this week the court finally ruled that Tele2 must block its customers from using AllofMP3.com.

“The telecommunications industry in Denmark has expressed outrage and concern over the verdict, as they feel it implies ISPs are now responsible for the activities of their users – not to mention a legal gray area where no verdict has been made against AllofMP3. “I’m shocked about the verdict, and view it as censorship. Tele2 and other Internet service providers provide free access to information on the internet, but now have to sort this... read more

AllofMP3.com has made it to the headlines last week… again…when the dispute between the site and the major card processing companies finally surfaced (right after AllofMP3 decided to defend its position publicly at an on-line press conference).

Visa and MasterCard have hardy made any comments apart from these few lines. "The action Visa has taken is in line with legislation passed in Russia and with basic international copyright and intellectual property norms," said Simon Barker, a spokesman for the company. (PC pro) "A Mastercard spokesman added the firm "did not tolerate the use of its network for illegal activity." (Forbes)

The legitimacy of this move has yet to be proven just as the accusations of IFPI, RIAA, USA officials, etc.

More in the press:

Allofmp3 attempts to lead music industry mutiny, The Inquirerread more

The campaign against AllofMP3.com has been going on for some time already. The site has been a target for abundant accusations, threats, lies, lobbying, etc.

Just to give an example: "The reason AllofMP3.com downloads are cheap, is that neither the artists nor the record companies are being paid" said the BPI General Counsel Roz Groome in April.

So the industry assumes that the site's price for music is too low for it to be legal and for artists to be compensated. However, the same (or even lower) price per track is being charged at a legal Chinese service top100.cn. It was launched some 8 months ago and has not received much press in the West, apart from the initial press release and recent news about Orchard licensing its catalogue to the biggest legal Chinese download service. "For just one yuan per song (that is 12 cents), mainland consumers could buy anything from The Beatles to Britney Spears" (South China Morning Post). "top100.cn has gained full supports from international and... read more