AllofMP3 Voucher Resellers Quit After Police Raid

Broohaha writes "Europeans who resell AllofMP3.com vouchers are quitting the business after a UK raid against one prominent reseller there. An Ars Technica article talks to several of them about their situations. 'Until a few days ago, I had never heard of the IFPI [the international music trade group],' said one reseller. 'But yes, I am concerned about them now. Although my attorney assures me that reselling gift certificates bought from AllOfMP3.com isn't breaking any laws, it isn't worth the possibility of engagement with their legal machine.' The music industry seems determined to choke off AllofMP3's funding, no matter how small the source."

The RIAA wins then...

[BecomingLumberg]

I guess the RIAA wins... I'll just have to go back to BitTorrent...

my attorney in the UK ?

[Anonymous Coward]

since when has anybody in the UK called a solicitor or lawyer/barrister an "attorney"
that word is used almost exclusivly by Americans, was this reseller an American in the UK or was the "quote" edited for a US audience

smells like bullshit here in London

Legal system problem

[MobyDisk]

This quote has the essence of the biggest problem in the 20th century, boiled down to one simple sentence:

Although my attorney assures me that reselling gift certificates bought from AllOfMP3.com isn't breaking any laws, it isn't worth the possibility of engagement with their legal machine.'

I would paraphrase that to:

Although what I am doing is legal, I dare not engage the legal system

Which makes justice impossible. No justice, kiss freedom goodbye.

"The music industry seems determined to choke off"

[unity100]

To me, "The music industry" seems to have become the bane of civil and modern life. As if there exist no problems in the world, no wars, no poverty, no economic issues but fucking more-cash problems of the "music industry". makes one start to treat individuals involved in this "music industry" like lowlifes in everyday life.

Re:my attorney in the UK ?

[morgan_greywolf]

Mod parent up! UK people rarely use the term 'attorney'. They are 'solicitors' or 'barristers' or even (less often) 'lawyers.'

The whole story seems like astroturfing designed to scare the bejesus out of the remaining resellers.

Re:Legal system problem

[haggisbrain]

Which makes justice impossible.

Almost there.

Which makes justice impossible. for those who aren't wealthy .

Re:The RIAA wins then...

[NetDanzr]

Actually, that's exactly what I was recommending to my friends to whom I previously recommended Allofmp3. I don't have the time and energy to keep troubleshooting their problems with music file formats from various legit stores that don't play on their mp3 players, and Allofmp3 was the only significant source of regular mp3 files that worked; now it's back to music piracy again...

Ironic

[caseih]

The RIAA is trying to stop allofmp3.com (operating under certain Russian copyright licensing laws) for doing the exact same thing that they are pushing to be allowed to do right here in the US. The RIAA wants to collect fees (sell if you will) for music played on radio stations (regular radio stations) regardless of whether or not the music is actually copyrighted by any of their members. This means that if a public radio station plays a few RIAA songs, but the majority are indie labels or any music not owned by the RIAA members, the RIAA gets a cut as if it was.

One can certainly argue against the moral rightness of the way the Russian copyright licensing laws work, since no American artist will ever see any of the fees that the Russian copyright organization collects. But certainly the RIAA is clearly acting morally wrong as well.

Re:See the comment in the summary?

[2nd Post!]

Civil disobedience also means going to jail and suffering the consequences of your actions.

Re:sigh

[edizzles]

Is it me or is the whole DRM, RIAA, ect getting out of hand realy fast, there attacking people in other contries. I can only hope that over the next 20 years people will get fed up with this crap and just stoping buying mussic from anyone working with these crazy power drunk freedy ashats

Russian Law

[Doc Ruby]

The central question is whether AllOfMP3.com is operating legally under Russian law. Or, given the totalitarian/anarchy that is modern Russia, whether a service that does what AllOfMP3.com does, operating as it does in Russia (and operating outside Russia only on the Internet), is at risk of takedown by Russian authorities (not including their mafias, but that's a basic risk of doing business in Russia).

If AllOfMP3.com doesn't survive long enough to be tested in Russian court (and subsequently in Russian police offices), we might never know whether another bizmodel or just other outside-Russian operations could survive to be tweaked into a way that survives.

Re:Shhhh

[shark72]

"parent is modded funny, but its an informative sort of statement.. do some research and find out how much, exactly, artists are compensated for cd sales by the riaa.. i think you'll find several conflicting points of data, all well below a "reasonable" amount. (think fractions of a percent)"

I've talked to people who've done quite well on sales through iTunes -- the $0.15 per track estimate is about right, in the instances I've confirmed. It's actually much higher than that for many indie artists (whose labels tend to pay them more), and unsigned artists who use CDBaby make much more.

Selling 1,000 albums and making $0.15 per track will only net you $1,200 -- but those same copies downloaded from allofmp3 will net you something approaching fuck all. And, I know we all like to think of artists as living a life of luxury, but you have to understand that for many artists, that is simply not the case. They need that $1,200 to pay the rent. A check from CDBaby or your record label for $1,200 will help you pay the rent. A non-existent check from allofmp3 will not.

You can talk about how a pirated copy from allofmp3 might ultimately help you, as it might create the interest which might allow you to travel to the pirate's town to perform live, where he might buy a ticket, or even buy a t-shirt. But paying the rent in the here and now beats pleasing some random pirate who might buy a shirt.

If you disagree, come to work for me for free. I can use some coders, some designers, and some editors and copyrighters. I might recommend you to my friends. If you believe that abstract concepts like giving your work away for free and making others happy are more important the realities of selling your work for money to pay the rent, let that start with you.

Re:Ironic

[shark72]

"Actually, any artist can collect fees from Russian music collecting agency. And Russian collecting agency is also a non-profit organization."

Okay, pretend you're a moderately successful artist. You sold 1,000 copies of your album on iTunes last month for which you netted about $1K. You suspect that allofmp3 also sold about 1,000 copies of your album last month (you have no way of knowing... artists have asked allofmp3 to release sales data, but they refuse). They sold them for $0.60 each, to which the collecting society perhaps got about $0.06, of which you might see $0.04. So, somewhere out there, somebody has $40.00 for you.

After finding ROMS' site and the English version thereof, you get to this page [www.roms.ru] before you hit a wall. If says that if you had "concluded an agreement" with ROMS (which you most likely have not), you are entitled to compensation, but ROMS does not tell you how you can go about this. You might note that by comparison, the corresponding page on ASCAP [ascap.com] is much more useful. This is because ASCAP is run by and for artists, and is looking out for your best interests. Unlike ROMS, they're not a front for a pirate site.

At what point do you give up, and admit that the Russians effectively get to keep your $40?