“We are sorry but the server is closed for maintainance.”

Looks like it’s still here.

There are other alternatives, too. Such as http://www.mp3sugar.com

I hope it returns soon as well. Allofmp3 is the only site I buy music from. I’d happily buy it from others if they offered the same service and features at similar rates.

What about a “free market” service similar to iTunes (but probably web-based) that lets the artists set their own prices? Most artists get the shaft from iTunes, simply because the record labels take such a big cut… With all of these independent bands on MySpace doing so well, it wouldn’t surprise me if alot of new bands stayed away from record labels in the future.

A quick search on iTunes reveals that some of the most popular bands from MySpace (i.e. some with over 4 million profile views) aren’t available…

Eh, they had this problem a couple weeks ago and came right back. FWIW, the AllofMp3 explorer was working over the weekend.

I’m all for disrupting the RIAA’s and MPAA’ rather antiquated business model but I fail to see how “buying” music through a channel where none of the money goes to the artists themselves will do so.

Sure, the artists get screwed under the typical RIAA based contract, but how are they any less screwed when their fans buy through a service where their income drops to zero? And how, exactly, does that send a message to the RIAA that they should change their ways?

If you read any of the linked articles, the official response — both from the government and the RIAA — is that allofmp3 is a pirate site that should be shut down and not some shining beacon of viable business model that should incite change in music distribution model.

Surely they would have seen this coming… the site was making a heck of a lot of money, so they would have had contingency plans… right?

For example, they could have built a new ops centre in a country that does not enforce copyrights at all. They could have moved their hosting to yet another country that takes a hands-off approach to data. They were almost certainly bribing the “right” people so that their chief execs were kept out of jail.

I’m not certain about this. But as far as I’ve heard allofmp3 operates within the Russian copyright rules. So in terms of record labels and artist getting their dues, they are perfectly aware of the Russian rules when they enter their products on the Russian market.

The dispute has been if it would be legal to purchase music from allofmp3 from a country with other copyright rules. And since nothing is preventing you from buying a cd when visiting Russia and bringing it back with you. The record labels have a hard time stopping allofmp3.

so is this mp3sugar site legit (i.e. is it safe to give them your $??)

Robert, I like your idea about a “free market” music site a lot. I think something like that would be superb.

bbum, you too do make a point. I don’t see how AllOfMP3 is legal any way whatsoever. If they had a deal going directly with the musicians or something, that would be different, but this way you’re just paying for the direct HTTP download. Might as well Bit-Torrent it (which I’m not saying I support either). I would like to know what the folks from TechCrunch think about this.

Salim, Michael, we still don’t know for sure that the site has shut down. It says that they’re down for maintenance, maybe they really are.

Jesper, maybe it does operate within the Russian copyright rules, but that doesn’t make it any less illegal for people in other countries to be “buying” songs from there either. Oh and what about the bands and artists from other countries? Screw them just, because it’s legal in Russia? I don’t support the RIAA or any other power and money hungry corporation that supports and promotes deviating its consumers’ personal computers and suing its members’ fans. I think there is a middle path and we need to find it. iTunes is definitely a great platform and I think it can work wonders and massively promote independent music and artists, if Apple allows it to.

Digg this story here.

The second IFPI lawsuit might have hit the nail
http://www.moskalyuk.com/blog/.....again/1066

Hello!
I’m french and i can tell you that the “Recording Industry” is very powerfull : look our “DADVSI” law !!!

The thing is, allofmp3.cz, which I think is their Czech site, is currently up. So what I’m thinking is that lots of people heard about this site closing down, and wanted to get their money in to make some ‘last minute’ purchases. A lot of traffic all at once was a strain on allofmp3’s servers and therefore they needed to close down for maintinence.

Also, I think if the site were down permanently, it would be one of those advertising sites when you went to allofmp3.com then the site would look like one of these: http://playtunes.com/ (I just chose a random url not in use). It brings you to a site where you can purchase the url. But that’s not the case, as there is a sign that says the server is closed for maintinence.

Just my 2 cents.

“Jesper, maybe it does operate within the Russian copyright rules, but that doesn’t make it any less illegal for people in other countries to be “buying” songs from there either.”

Simran, can you quote any law in your country (the US, presumably) that says it’s illegal to *purchase* music in or from another country if their copyright law differs?

Sorry, it’s India. And I’m not talking about the legality of it, rather the morality. Americans (since we’re probably talking about the Birttanys) are buying music from American artists through Russia and the artists from their own country are getting nothing. How is that legal, or rather, moral?

Michael - How can you justify your celebration of illegal copyright infringement while at the same time complaining about plagarism when it affects yourself? http://www.crunchnotes.com/?p=115

AllofMP3 down? Ouch!

I wonder why you think AllofMP3 to be legal??

If artist does not get money if you download from them then it can not be legal only because price tag is attached.

There is no difference downloading music from them or LimeWare, except it costs.

Tanaeem: The reason that it’s legal is because the company is operating in Russia. They have different copyright laws that us here in the states. So we’re legally buying music, but by a different country’s laws.

$0.02 / mb is between $1-2 per album depending on quality. This is theoretically more than what artists get paid by labels when you buy a CD from the store (please correct me if I am wrong here).

However, you have to acknowledge what music labels bring to the table:
- management experience
- connections with skilled producers/engineers
- studio time
- promotion experience
- advertising funds

So you can’t just discount their contribution as irrelevant. A site where artists can publish their own music sounds great - but all of the above would still have to be paid, or replaced, somehow.

Its legal. RIAA approved to let Russia digital music online.

The problem of course is people in foreign countries buying things at prices targetted for the local population.

But thats no different than living in Europe and buying stuff on Amazon.com, we all try and take advantage of local pricing when it suits us….

Well I am starting to really think that the site is down for good since their http://www.alltunes.com/ website is also down but with no message stating anything. It just comes up with a “could not connect to server” error.

The big record labels are big marketing machines that can no longer effectively market to the youth market. Just give it a few years and they will follow the same path the newspaper industry is currently on… the slow spiral into a smaller, more niche industry.

Smart artists will give their music away for free, and make big dough on the concert circuit or through their merchandise.

This makes sense, since record companies were valuable years ago when artists needed a partner to help distribute their music- now that distribution online is easy and effectively costs nothing, their services are no longer required.

And oddly, I do not feel much sorrow - the industry has profited long enough on the backs of many artists who never really got much out of the deal.

It’s evolution, baby…

At least those who use bittorrent know they are stealing content. Independent artists have largely done well from file sharing and mp3 blogs of dubious legality, but the difficulty of getting whole albums drives many to actually buy an album.

Now with all of mp3 you get to “buy” an album, but not a stinking penny goes to the artist.

Great comment, Calvin. I completely agree with you. I wish more people would think like us.

Ryan, you’re mostly right. But the artists do get a fraction of the ammount, don’t they? I mean, it’s something. I like eMusic a lot, but I wish there was more mainstream music there.

If they are indeed gone, I guess I lost my $7 dollars that I still had.

the czech site is also down. yes, the czech home page is up, but no links, search, or sign-in functions operate.

The other idea that I have not seen caught on is to obuild DRM technology as shareware so sites that need to share music can use publically available DRM rather tahn to use one proprietary technology vs another.

That’s looks more like the kind of generic message an ISP will put up when it has shut a site down…

I hope it’s not down for good, I hadn’t spent so much money on music before I heard of this site. I still have $40 left on my icard! I think of allofmp3 as the discount dollar bin you can find in any music store, I’m still paying for the music just not as much as at another retailer.

Robert, artists do not own their own music. The record labels do, so they will not be able to set their own prices.

Nothing makes sense here – where is the statement from allofmp3, where are the media reports of the Russian authorities taking away the computers and best of all, the music industry gloating. I work in the IT industry and no fee earning site (that I work on) would be down this long because of a technical problem. (PS: If it is a tech problem – please contact me for help).

Eric,

I am aware of this. My previous post stated that “it wouldn’t surprise me if alot of new bands stayed away from record labels in the future“. There are a TON of popular MySpace bands that could use such a service becayse they are unsigned to a label… If “independent” bands are a thing of the future (which they appear to be), then most of the music will be unsigned anyway. The record label industry is slowly getting cut out, now that artists know how greedy they are.

I didn’t mean the John Lennon could upload his old songs from back in the day, I meant that new garage bands that have millions of fans on MySpace could bypass the record label

Er… John Lennon’s dead, make that Paul McCartney…

I think that the point that everyone is overlooking is that allofmp3.com is the perfect model for what a legitimate music store SHOULD be. I think that their pricing is spot-on. Here’s an example based on a 500MB CD at $0.02/MB for various compression rates:

Uncompressed WAV files would cost about $10 for the whole CD;
Compressed but lossless FLAC files would cost about $7;
Very high quality (320kbps) OGG files would be about $3.50;
Decent quality (160kbps) MP3 files would cost about $2;
Marginal quality (64kbps) MP3 files would cost less than $1.

The per-bit pricing makes it easy for the distributor and the user gets to choose whichever quality fits their needs and budget. I’d happily pay $3.50 for an entire CD’s worth of 320k OGG files. What the record labels (and movie studios) need to remember is that MOST PEOPLE ARE HONEST and would gladly pay a reasonable price for music. Their basic problem is that they have been gouging both their customers and their artists for so long, that nobody believes that their current pricing model is fair.

If there were a legitimate music store in the US that was based on allofmp3’s model, music piracy would practically disappear overnight.

Guys, I think we all have to calm down and wait. Techincal problems with russian-based music stores is something that happened before. Don’t you remember what happened with mp3search.ru last year? They closed down the site for a while, everybody started to panic and - guess what? The site is fully functional. Let’s wait and see…

Anyone stop to wonder how much money AllofMP3.com has “on deposit” from customers? I’ve got $15 on account there myself. Could be quite a winfall to the operators to “take the money and run” if and when they see the writing on the wall for the continuity of their organization.

It makes you wonder how wise it is to pony up cash in advance for a service an ocean away where you have zero recourse should they pull the plug…

I’m preparing $500 to spend as soon as they come back, maybe even more, I need to finish off building my collection.

Gabriel - There are a number of these sites that I use regularly, all cheap, all based in Russia, and as of this weekend all gone. This is not a technical glitch, this is the aftermath of a wide reaching crack down by a government that has been pus$y whipped by another government that has been pus$y whipped by our friends in the RIAA.

bbum - The artists are less screwed by these operations because these operations are actually getting the content to the listener. I am a musician and I can tell you I would easily choose to make less money if I knew my music was getting out to more ears because a) that’s why I do it and b) in a pragmatic sense it translates directly into ticket and merchandizing $s.

The RIAA is just like a number other old media that are in various states of their own death throughs. Unfortunately, they’re hurting a lot of people in their bid to make one last buck and perhaps stay around for another few years. “Steeling” music, buying it from companies who somehow get around supporting it.. anything that speeds their demise is a good thing. You can either choose to starve a couple artists for a short time, or keep propping up a structure that will not be satisfied until you pay them X dollars every time you want to listen to a song you already own…and the artists still starve.

ah, stephen, i looked at a few other russian music download sites (that i haven’t bought from), navigated around, and listened to song samples. the websites are active and appear fully functional to me.

which are the other russian sites that you say are ‘gone’?

Stephen (#39) - Do you think suspected organized piracy sites (e.g. allmp3) are genuinely concerned about what’s in the best interest of musicians? Maybe there are some benefits like you’ve suggested as a side of their activities but it’s still unclear to me what their underlying agenda really is. Scott (#35) makes an interesting point about allmp3 being a prototype for a potentially more sensible, viable longer-term business model even if that’s not their intention. Is that any riskier than the alternatives?

Sometimes it’s hard to avoid premature “radical” judgments about the RIAA, MPAA, allmp3, et.al. based on personal biases from incomplete information and hearsay evidence of their motives, instead remaining as open and questioning about them as possible.

I concur with what Greg says… there are a number of other Allofmp3/Alltunes type sites (based in Russia) that are still working fine for me.

andy - Specifically, I was talking about one (completely unrelated to allofmp3 or alltunes as far as I know) that actually seems to be back up now after being “gone” all weekend. Interesting coincidence? I hope this ends up proving me wrong.

sjk - Honestly, I don’t care what their intentions are. The enemy of my enemy is, for now, my friend. And I agree 100% that these sites could absolutely be a model for a “legit” service. Add onto it the ability to “donate” to the artist in the same way that we do for a lot of open source software and you have a winner. The challenge is that those kind of services wont be allowed to exists until the RIAA does not.

The fact that allofmp3.com may or may not be “legal” isn’t really the point. The point is that allofmp3, IMO, started something major for the music world, and even if they’re shut down (which at this point, seems obvious), it won’t stop a million other sites from rising up above it’s ashes. Look at tunster.com, mp3search.ru, mp3stor.ru, mp3sugar.ru, musicmp3.ru and about a billion others. They’re all are built around the same theme, save the fact that their quality is S***. Allofmp3 went from being a humble underground cult to a million dollar empire, sharing in an actual percentage of music sales worldwide! Legal or not, how can you deny their impact?

The RIAA just doesn’t get it. CD sales aren’t what they used to be, and people are becoming less and less willing to pay .99 for a single, low bit rate wma/aac file packaged with D(evil)RM. MP3 still rules the world, and even with the death of allofmp3, will continue to dominate. It’s up to the RIAA to adjust to these changes and stop trying to sell us crap. Most of the bands I listen to will openly admit that they don’t make s*** from their label on cd sales, so if I buy a ticket to their concert and purchase a stupid t-shirt while I’m there, haven’t I done enough to *support* them. I don’t want a 15 dollar piece of plastic, and I don’t want to spend $10,000 to max out my Ipod with music. I want a choice. High quality music available for a fair price from many different sources. Until you give me that, you can eat s***.

Allofmp3 was the best thing to happen to online music since the original napster. I’m sad that it’s gone, but I know that someone else’s site will rise to the challange and take it’s place.

P.S: If you actually read up on the subject, you’d see that allofmp3 was in fact legal. Example; if you were living in russia, you’d be purchasing music from AOMp3 for about what you’d purchase an original audio recording for. In fact, Russian music fans probably won’t even feel the closing of allofmp3, as it wasn’t really a bargain for them in the first place. However, the argument is that if you’re not from russia, you have no business using allofmp3.com, as it doesn’t add up when you take into account local exchange rates and goverment laws. Sub E.G. Just because allofmp3.com pays the *russian* copyright dues, doesn’t mean you living in the US/UK/CA ect. get a free pass. That’s the argument, anyway. It’s a grey area mindf**k, and trying to figure it all out in one sitting will give you a brain freeze. Hell, it took an entire lobby six years to shut AOmp3 down, and they were working day and night!

I guess people say this a lot (maybe it’s true then). I have several times bought CD’s and gone to concerts after buying tracks from allofmp3 with bands I never heard of before.

So how the hell can that be immoral? I would never have learned of them if I had to pay 25$ for a CD (Yes it’s even more expensive in Denmark), that is if I knew there was a CD to buy. I’m not that into the whole but shaking mainstream stuff they pump into your head on most TV and radio shows. I learned about these bands from allofmp3.

As many here have mentioned it’s the big labels business model that is out of date. Not a bunch of evil people trying to deprive the musicians from their living.

The problem I have with all DRM is that it protects the Intellectual Property (IP) at a cost to the consumer. You can’t back up movies or cds under the letter of the law, so your payment is for access to the IP _as long as the media holds up_. So that DVD movie got scratched, you can’t back it up, go to the person that took your money and ask for another copy ? I realize its very similar with books, for those that use bound pages, you ruin the book buy another one? However we are in a different age where the media is the transport of IP and the cost of it should be negated in the digital age.

…and it’s back!

yeppie!! btw mike, your sites really ugly

It’s back, but when I try to order a track I get the following message:
“Ordering is temporarily not available.”

just 2 messages i got today from an allofmp3 employee which i know since my days in moscow:

“allof is being pressurised to shut down by the authorities. As Americans want russia to enter wto with a good int property protection record.”

the good news for the moment:

“we are just relocating the servers”