- Thanks to the efforts of the Big Music cartel, Russia’s AllofMP3.com, which offers high quality mp3s at the kind of prices that should be standard everywhere, is being investigated by Russian police.
AllofMP3.com asks for between one and two cents for one megabyte of traffic.
“The Russian site claimed it had licenses to do so from a local clearing house, but record labels have maintained that the licenses weren't valid,” says CNET News.
“After long-standing complaints, the Moscow City Police Computer Crimes division completed an investigation earlier this month and recommended that prosecutors charge the site's operators with criminal copyright infringement.”
Whoa! Criminal copyright! Is that like murder, say?
Now, "We are pleased that the police are bringing this important case to the attention of the prosecutor," Igor Pozhitkov, regional director of IFPI Moscow, is quoted as saying.
That’s hardly surprising considering the "long-standing complaints" came from the cartel-owned IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) which instigated the investigation in the first place.
However, AllofMP3.com owners MediaServices say everything is above board as per "license # LS-3?-03-79 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society”.
Under the license terms, “MediaServices pays license fees for all the materials subject to the Law of the Russian Federation On Copyright and Related Rights,” it states.
“All the materials are available solely for personal use and must not be used for further distribution, resale or broadcasting."
It also states: “Users are held liable for the use and distribution of the MediaServices site information materials according to local legislation."
The Moscow City Prosecutor's office has until March 7 to decide whether or not to to act on the police department's [read IFPI’s] recommendation and just to be sure, the IFPI has also submitted its own formal complaint to the prosecutor's office, adds CNET.
Think of the money the cartel and its investors could be raking in if it smartened up and started offering the complete contents of its catalogues at 10 to 20 cents per download through the exisiting corporate music sites, and all the others that woudl spring up like mushrooms if it prices were fair.
Instead, the cartel members, EMI, UMG, Sony BMG and Warner, flog the same, boring cookie-cutter selections to the same, boring cookie-cutter sites at prices which force them to try to charge $1 and up per mp3.
Naturally, no one's buying and the cartel's response is to try to sue online music lovers into doing so.
