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Topic: Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites (Read 9183 times) previous topic - next topic
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Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

See better, more detailed article at ArsTechnica about this matter here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061129-8315.html

Russia has agreed to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other illegal music and software piracy sites.

Article here:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle...ype=allchandate

"Russia has agreed to US demands to close the popular music website Allofmp3.com.

The US wants the site closed to fight music piracy. Russia has agreed to close the site in an attempt at improving its chance of gaining membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Russia will close down other websites that infringe copyrights, according to a PDF document on the website of the US Trade Representative.

The US and Russia have agreed to combat piracy by closing down several websites that infringe copyrights, according to the document, which cites Allofmp3.com as a prime example.

The popular site has been subject to criticism for some time now."

Also being reported/discussed on Slashdot.org here:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/29/012244

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #1 –
In other words, Russia closes down a site that is perfectly legal in Russia as a favour to the US (damn russian arse lickers) so they get better chances to join the WTO later on.

Gotta love the RIAA lobbyists, they're like the modern mafia.
myspace.com/borgei - last.fm/user/borgei

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #2 –
Maybe they should move the site to North Korea?

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #3 –
note: AllOfMp3 is not acting illegally. Problems come from the fact that Russia is not a WTO member, and AllOfMp3 is using it to legally increase its attractiveness.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #4 –
So, can I correctly interpret this as another case of there being no actual rule of law in Russia?

I mean, I've never used allofmp3 and I don't ever intend to, but daaayyyumn.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #5 –
There's a bit more of a story behind this. As the old Russian law governing music licensing was devised for the old days of radio stations with an audience of millions, it made sense that the fee per listener was very small (in the order of a hundredth of a cent). This system also exists in the US, and in most of the rest of the world - but only for radio stations, not for music purchases.

AllOfMP3 uses a loophole in the Russian law, where they claimed to be a a "radio station" under the premise that selling a song to a customer is equal to broadcasting a tune to a radio listener. Ie, if AOM sold 100.000 songs meant they paid $10 in licensing. The argument that selling a song is equal to broadcasting it on radio obviously didn't fly anywhere, except for Russia.

AllOfMP3 then also used this local loophole to start selling to customers outside of Russia, which obviously didn't sit well with other countries (The US mostly, but also every other country with a sizeable music industry), and they started protesting against the Russian law that made this possible.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #6 –
Quote from: bidz on
....(damn russian arse lickers)....

What if I tell : damn arse lickers from norway? Would you like it? OUR mentality is far to call lickers. Viseverse.
Lickers to whom? To nobody!
How many t?me they were closing ?t.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #7 –
Quote
Russia has agreed to US demands to close the popular music website Allofmp3.com


I hate news like this.
The US demand, the rest of the world falls to their knees.

IIRC TPB have servers in russia, the RIAA wouldnt waste anytime shutting those down also.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #8 –
Quote from: TREX6662k6 on
Quote
Russia has agreed to US demands to close the popular music website Allofmp3.com


I hate news like this.
The US demand, the rest of the world falls to their knees.

IIRC TPB have servers in russia, the RIAA wouldnt waste anytime shutting those down also.

Presumably many torrent sites, or whatever, just move to another country when this sort of thing happens... I suppose eventually they will run out of countries but probably not in my lifetime.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #9 –
Yeah.  Negotiation is one thing: it wouldn't be so bad if the current US Copyright-related laws, including the DMCA, weren't so draconian, and seen as the target for what other countries should "aspire" to. 

That families can be literally sued into the poorhouse* for a single member being caught with 100s of songs served onto a P2P network is so extremely punitive that it is just silly.

Granted, the system allows out-of-court settlements which will tend to be drastically lower, but the dollar amounts allowed by the law make it a form of extortion to force the settlements.

-brendan

* whoops, I guess "onto the street", since we don't have poorhouses any more.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #10 –
Quote from: TREX6662k6 on
Quote
Russia has agreed to US demands to close the popular music website Allofmp3.com


I hate news like this.
The US demand, the rest of the world falls to their knees.

IIRC TPB have servers in russia, the RIAA wouldnt waste anytime shutting those down also.


RIAA does not equal USA.  RIAA is causing problems everywhere yet we, as a people, have not stood up and stated that is enough.  Instead we could care less unless it directly effects us than do we act.

It is pretty much a world apathy that has invaded lives.
Zune 80, Tak -p4 audio library, Lossless=Choice

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #11 –
I would argue that a degree of lax enforcement is also involved. Right now, I can still listen to my own music anywhere I want, and transfer my own music anywhere I want, by judicious use of easily available technologies. That is, since DMCA-related control schemes doesn't yet control every single bit of data that goes through my system, I don't really care about it. When they do, I start to care.

This as the intellectual property analog of casual speeding. Everybody does it. It doesn't mean an apocalypse is imminent, even though everybody is technically committing a crime when doing it. And the existing system of enforcement and the existing statistics of traffic safety are all based on this fact. But this all changes if, say, speeding cameras are installed on every road, with automatic ticketing. Suddenly the law that was generally ignored is now much more important. In a very real sense, the law is being reinterpreted in the act of better enforcing it.

Oh, and now that I know the exact loophole that allofmp3 is using, I have a lot less sympathy for them.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #12 –
Quote from: Axon on
This as the intellectual property analog of casual speeding. Everybody does it.

Speak for yourself. I don't steal music. Therefore "everybody" is not doing it. I am a Christian minister and to steal would be wrong for me.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #13 –
Sorry, I was referring to copying music for personal use, instead of buying from unlicensed sites or p2p downloads. My point is that personal use copies will be eventually prohibited except under specifically coded allowances.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #14 –
OK. I understand your meaning now (personal use copies). Yes, but the Supreme Court Sony vs. Betamax case applies to personal copies (plus other court cases since then) which are legal. The DMCA is unfortunately a hindrance to getting at the stuff you are legally allow to copy for personal use (like a DVD movie). You can copy a videotaped movie you own (purchased) for achival purposes legally, but if you break the DRM on a DVD watch out!

Personally I am glad they are going after AllOfMP3.com and other Russian music sites that don't pay artists. These sites are not licensed by the artists to distribute their work.

Being a Christian music publisher myself, with 8 albums currently for sale on iTunes, Rhapsody and many other legal music sales sites, I would feel it was stealing if some site posted MP3 files of the music that I owned all copyrights to without my permission. This included P2P networks also. Just my opinion, but I believe I have the legal backup for my rights and claim.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #15 –
Quote from: goodnews on
Speak for yourself. I don't steal music. Therefore "everybody" is not doing it. I am a Christian minister and to steal would be wrong for me.


Are you sure?  Have you ever sung "Happy Birthday To You" in what might be considered a public performance (e.g. at a restaurant)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthda...ic_performances
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/7/5/112441/6280

I can't say for sure I am not guilty of stealing under the current Copyright law (specifically for singing that song in a public place to other listeners).

-brendan
 

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #16 –
Since they never paid a dime to any of the artists on the site, I'm not really upset about this. From a moral standpoint it is better to just go with a free p2p site if you're intent on not paying "western" prices for your music.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #17 –
Brendan,

Good point about "Happy Birthday To You" song. It has been in dispute for many years. And people often, like patents, find it easier for commercial usage to pay the copyright claimants than fight a court case to invalidate their copyright. The current Patent law is under review by the U.S. Supreme Court which heard that case's oral arguments yesterday. Now it is so easy to get a trivial patent. We'll see how they rule on that.

My point is that copyrights are legal in almost all countries, and most respect the other country's copyrights due to various intellectual property, trade and other treaties. I used to be anti-copyriht and released the songs and books I wrote to the Public Domain -- that was until people started taking my work and using them without attribution and/or changing them and passing it off as their own works (which many even tried to copyright as their own original works).

Copyright protects one's creative expression (such as music or books) so that you can exclusively control various elements of its use (i.e. public performance, duplication, the making of derivative works, etc.) with few exceptions. Copyright is not bad, but is the law, and if someone steals from my original created works (or another artist's) they are breaking the law

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #18 –
Quote from: hangman on
Maybe they should move the site to North Korea?


Good luck! North Korea is so afraid of the Internet, they don't even host their own government sites - they are hosted in China.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #19 –
Quote from: goodnews on
Copyright protects one's creative expression (such as music or books) so that you can exclusively control various elements of its use (i.e. public performance, duplication, the making of derivative works, etc.) with few exceptions. Copyright is not bad, but is the law, and if someone steals from my original created works (or another artist's) they are breaking the law


I agree, as originally envisioned, Copyright, Patents and Trade Marks are all very good ideas, in terms of promoting and rewarding innovation (with the primary goal of benefit to the public, incidentally, not the creator), whether artistic, scientific or otherwise.

The discomfort I have is due to the level to which the original intent has become perverted to the purposes of very large institutions (e.g. Corporations).  Ridiculous extensions to the length of Copyright, patenting of non-mechanical/non-chemical items, etc. 

-brendan

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #20 –
.
Come on, lets face it, we all knew that AllofMP3.com was a fresh face on what amounted to a pirate site: its just that we were:

A) Cheering for cheap music, no matter what the form it came in
B) Cheering for the under-dog - the "anyone who despises the RIAA is a friend of ours" mentality

I loved their pricing structure, though I never used it as I was not keen to give my VISA card number to a shady site...

Unfortunately, the large labels worldwide just cannot seem to get it through their heads that offering music online at truly low prices, and without DRM, will amount to a [whole lot] more music distribution.  Furthermore, encoding at higher bit rates, (up to 320KB/s and a FLAC option would be perfect), is the way to go: to hell with 128KB/s downloads!

Andrew D.
Cdnav
.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #21 –
Quote from: rjamorim on
Quote from: hangman on
Maybe they should move the site to North Korea?


Good luck! North Korea is so afraid of the Internet, they don't even host their own government sites - they are hosted in China.



Hehe ... copy kills music and free information kills tyrrany/dictatorship ...
The name was Plex The Ripper, not Jack The Ripper

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #22 –
Quote
I used to be anti-copyriht and released the songs and books I wrote to the Public Domain -- that was until people started taking my work and using them without attribution and/or changing them and passing it off as their own works


You cant just expect people to automatically credit you. If your posting work in the public domain, you have to understand that some people will not credit you.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #23 –
The actual document at www.ustr.gov (Office of the United States Trade Representative)

2006-11-19 - Fact Sheet on U.S.-Russia Bilateral Market Access Agreement on Intellectual Property Rights

Edit. Quotes from the document:

Fighting Optical Disc Piracy
  • The United States and Russia agreed on the objective of permanently closing down production ofoptical media containing pirated and counterfeit material.
  • Russia will:
    - Terminate leases, and refuse new leases, for optical media factories on restricted military-industrial sites;
    - inspect licensed plants regularly, day and night;
    - find and shut down unlicensed plants;
    - find and inspect warehouses for pirated and counterfeit goods; and
    - take criminal actions where there is evidence of commercial scale piracy.
  • Russia will also strengthen regulation of optical media plants, including working to enact legislation by June 1, 2007, to deny licenses to past offenders.
Fighting Internet Piracy
  • The United States and Russia agreed on the objective of shutting down websites that permit illegal distribution of music and other copyright works. The agreement names the Russia-based website allofmp3.com as an example of such a website.
  • Russia will:
    - take enforcement actions against the operation of Russia-based websites; and
    - investigate and prosecute companies that illegally distribute copyright works on the Internet.
  • Russia will work to enact legislation by June 1, 2007, to stop collecting societies from acting without right holder consent,
  • Russia will also work to enact legislation implementing the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Internet treaties.

Russia agrees to shut down AllOfMp3.com and other music sites

Reply #24 –
Quote from: digital on
Come on, lets face it, we all knew that AllofMP3.com was a fresh face on what amounted to a pirate site:

I would disagree on this.