AllOfMP3 Responds To RIAA’s $1.65 Trillion Lawsuit

December 27th, 2006 at 10:09 pm

Aarrghhh….. problems of local laws and global web ….

December 27th, 2006 at 10:42 pm

This is too funny - how do you come up with 1.6T ?

Their stupid lawsuit just gave allofmp3 1B worth of free advertising.

December 27th, 2006 at 10:50 pm

can we get some background on the allofmp3 team/story? is there anything interesting there?

December 27th, 2006 at 11:14 pm

@ al

Don’t ask. You probably don’t want to know, if you know what I mean *wink*

December 28th, 2006 at 1:00 am

$1.6 Trillion seems a bit much…

To RIAA: Don’t go and spend it all in one place

December 28th, 2006 at 3:20 am

Apostle:

“The problem is that U.S. citizens are using a Russian website that is violating U.S. laws.”
- If that’s the problem, go after those U.S. citizens.
- A Russian website can only violates Russian law, not U.S law. U.S is not the centre of the world. AllOfMP3 can do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t violate Russian law. It’s not their problem if Russian law does not protect the music industry.

“Acting like it’s okay to steal from artists and companies that represent them isn’t really “going out with a little panache”; it’s more akin to going out like Napster, which proves that some people don’t learn from history.

- it isn’t “stealing” if it’s not illegal according to Russian law.
- Napster was a U.S company, and it violated U.S law, that’s why it was shut down.

“Bottom line - theft is theft no matter where you locate your “business”.”

- Bottom line - theft is theft only when the law says it is. Apparently the Russian law doesn’t say that.

Any porn is totally illegal in where I live, but thanks to the Internet, anyone online can visit millions of porn websites, including those hosted in U.S. Does it mean those U.S porn websites operators can be sued because they violated my country local law? You must be crazy if you say “YES”.

December 28th, 2006 at 5:30 am

RIAA obviously has no intention of collecting this money…its meant to frustrate AllOfMP3 to death…literally……..

And with additional pressure from the Russian Govt its just a matter of time…

December 28th, 2006 at 6:18 am

I don’t know, but $150,000 per offense probably adds up to $1.65 trillion when you add up all the copyright violations.

December 28th, 2006 at 6:35 am

RIAA is a perfect example of a corporate entity (read record companies) that screw up royally and then spend the next 20 years trying to make up the money they lost because of their stupidity.

Remember, the labels represented by RIAA are not losing money, they are simply not making as much money as they think they are entitled to. They may have a point.

But bear in mind that they really are not talking about the money that artists are entitled to, but their labels.

It is despicable, I think, that these anonymous malcontents (go to their website sometime and see if you can find a single contact name or email address) are treated like saviors of the artistic community in the mainstream press when in fact they are doing everything they can with the other hand to claw-back money from these very artists.

And now, once again, the press will present this trillion dollar adventure as yet another portrait of a young artist in need of royalties.

December 28th, 2006 at 7:07 am

I think a lot of the commentators here are forgetting that copyright laws are agreed upon to be cross-border, internationally binding. It’s perfectly within the artists’ rights to go after international corporations/organizations/individuals who break these international laws. Similar action has been taken with the software and movie industries.

Another gray area to consider is that while, yes, the corporation is based in russia, by being on the web it is operating de facto under international regulations and as a global corporation, bound by international law. they accept credit from and provide service and product to individuals in other countries and so must abide by the laws that have been agreed upon to facilitate such commerce. On a similar note we have the recent cases with off-shore gambling (perhaps this is the solution for the riaa - sue the cc operators to stop paying any bills from allofmp3? hmmm …)

One last note unrelated to the legality - anyone who signs up using a cc# with allofmp3 i would consider a complete fool at this point. What do you think is going to happen to their beautiful, verified and active database of user names, addresses and cc info when they finally give up the ghost? Man, it’s going to make the whole VA laptop drop look like a pebble in the ocean when that shiznit hits the black market!!!!

December 28th, 2006 at 7:18 am

“I am so sick of the way the world thinks sometimes. Just because you follow the law - in whatever country - still does not mean you’re doing something right.”

@Vance

Honestly.. who really gives a shit if whatever is the right thing? Almost every person is trying to make personal profit and that is in my opinion exactly the opposite to the right thing. For instance communism/marxism hse a great idea behind it - but it just doesn’t work because there are people that are just interested in making personal profit and they have the power to.

“i think you have to think mike as i am a russian webmaster called AllofWeb2.0, and i copy/paste all your content and make a lot of money from it because in my country its legal to do it.”

@fede req
Russia has copyright laws - so that is in fact illegal. allofmp3 is not breaking any of the Russian copyright laws or any other. It simply does not matter if someone feels that it is not OK - because it can be done without punishment.

A question to you all: is it any more legit to sue people for fortunes if they perhaps downloaded some songs from the internet in comparison to what allofmp3 does? Who of those is doing more “the right thing”?

December 28th, 2006 at 7:28 am

@Vance #18

A crime isn’t something that you just feel is “wrong”. A law has to be broken.

If you want, you can argue to have Russian law changed, But as it stands what they are doing is perfectly legal in the country in which they are doing it and as such no case should be brought against them.

December 28th, 2006 at 7:38 am

1.65 Trillion = 150,000 x 11,000,000 mp3 copyright violations. I think it’s really bullish of the RIAA to even claim a suit that large.. I know the RIAA has a job to do, but that says a little much..

It would be better if they did however cut all the crap between the two and struck some kind of deal, even legit I’m sure allofmp3 especially with recent “advertising” would still do great.

December 28th, 2006 at 7:50 am

I agree w/ #26 - Mike, you don’t know jack about the music industry.

December 28th, 2006 at 8:14 am

Why do you need DRM (or any other copy protection)? Because people do not find your product worth what you charge.

Why do AOMP3 have such success? Because people is more than willing to pay the price they charge and it’s more convenient than searching for pirated MP3’s.

Always wondered why all the whiners can’t see that it’s no because people want to leech free music from the starving artists. It’s because right now your options are; expensive DRM infested files vs. free (in terms of charge not time) pirated files.

People are lazy, and that’s good for business. If the has-been-geezers of the music industry would spend some time working out at model that would be so convenient for people that they just couldn’t be bothered to copy or download music, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But instead they throw around silly lawsuits, like kids laying screaming on the floor because mommy said “no”.

But eventually kids grow up, and old geezers wither away and die. Hopefully someone who see a business opportunity rather than corrupted thieves will come around.

December 28th, 2006 at 8:34 am

Notsure:
>As bad as DRM is - without it, muso’s would just
>not get any money and I dont think any
>major corporation will support it.

So DRM stops piracy does it? Fact is people who want to can get any major label music sans DRM for $0.00. The only thing DRM protects is Apple’s market share.

December 28th, 2006 at 9:20 am

Cool man,

If the law of the land is not disturbed then what the heck,

http://www.tekno-world.blogspot.com

December 28th, 2006 at 9:31 am

31. Jesper Bram - I read every post, and yours is closest to the way it will be… the why of what matters.

This suit by the RIAA is just a business process. Those come and go. Leadership drives the creation and use of them. And as we all know, new leaders can be both good and bad. So I would make no assumptions about the socio-economic market that your digital-mindedness is contributing energy towards.

Our society is waiting for leadership. VC’s, Foundations, Governments, Schools, Social Entrepreneurs… are searching for and investing in leadership. It is working. The Internet is waiting for leadership. As a substantive place with a perceivable physical form akin to VC’s, Foundations, Governments, Schools, Markets… the internet is the most fertile ground in the entire socio-economic universe we have explored.

Why?

All of us want to use the machine, the pipes :-), the end points, the gears and circuitry, the code … to make it work for us. We want to automate process and procedure so that we can spend time on our own unique interests and perspectives. This is possible on a nation by nation, culture by culture, community by community, network by network, family by family, person by person basis. But what about allowing those different versions of the one global Internet to communicate with one another?

In other words, what about inter-operability? Unique businesses have unique ideas about this concept. And because suppliers today create the experience that consumers enjoy using on the Internet, suppliers get to unilatterally set the terms of use.

So the revolution that many are aiming their efforts towards is the the revolution of “We the people…”. We are talking about abbreviating the structure of our own government to make it more powerful in its “pursuit of happiness” in the future world being built today.

Why would “We the people…” revolt in unison then? What exists that we all lack that would make all of us more powerful if we merely had it. If we merely appropriated it. Took control of it. Owned it.

What makes America great on an individual basis to all of us?

YOU… must own it.

December 28th, 2006 at 9:53 am

I agree with Mike, the days where musicans get paid outright per album purchase by the listener are numbered.

The future is subscriptions and long-term revenue streams. That’s the model that makes the most money, and that’s what sells. People don’t want to go to Blockbuster and rent each movie singlely, they want to subscribe to a $20 or whatever amount per month and have unlimited rentals. People don’t want to pay for every phone call they make, they want a $20 flat rate for all domestic calls.

YouTube is proving that people are making the switch to remotely stored information rather downloading it locally, and Yahoo Music is doing pretty well with subscription-based on-demand music streams.

The future is the following, so take note: the internet will be ubiquitous and available wirelessly everywhere, and subscriptions (whole libraries) and mini-subscriptions (libraries of single labels or single artists) will be sold for on-demand music streams that go to internet-capable mobile devices. Give it about 10 years, probably less.

Major artists or labels will sign with the largest stream providers and get cuts based on how often people listen to their music. “Independants” will let people subscribe to their own feeds, or sign with stream providers with narrowed musical tastes (something like - “Blue Notes, Inc. - providing you with all Jazz on-demand music from artists with soul”).

New artists will hook up with some company that can gets their content to major streams, but keep large cuts of profits. Some tech savvy musicians will figure out a cost-effective way of doing it themselves. It will catch on (”streaming at home!”) and become the next pod-casting.

10 Years from now, kids won’t believe people left their house to buy a disc, and everyone will still be upset with the music industry, only it’ll be because Future Pop-Singer has 100 million subscribers but hasn’t released anything new in years. People just stay subscribed because they get it comes free when they subscribe to HBO.

The RIAA will be suing people for using fake accounts or phishing accounts to listen to streams they didn’t pay for.

/time for me to go back to the future. Goodbye citizens of Old America.

December 28th, 2006 at 10:40 am

A few fantastically flawed arguments to be found here; my favourite: “Why do you need DRM (or any other copy protection)? Because people do not find your product worth what you charge.”

By the same logic, you should also remove the walls and security systems around your favorite jewelery store and leave the inventory unsecured at night in the parking lot. If people leave the stock alone, then it must be that they value the product and what you charge for it; if they go to some effort to take it, then by your logic they do so because they do not agree with the value that you affix to it (and, besides, it is worthless anyway). This is short-circuited logic at its finest.

People copy things because they want the product, like what they get, like that they won’t have to spend money for it, and can do it at home while no-one is watching; they do NOT engage in such practices out of some personal philosophical desire to alter abstract market dynamics.

December 28th, 2006 at 11:58 am

All of MP3 should just be regulated so that artist get their share of the money.

December 28th, 2006 at 12:14 pm

I like Peter Jenner’s approach with a blanket license - granted, its rather socialistic, but it’s the only way everyone wins…

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2.....er_jenner/

December 28th, 2006 at 1:48 pm

The world is not perfect. Every side of the conflict has its own truth. Sometimes there more then two sides of the conflict such as authors, media, studios, national and international laws, the consumer and many more. DRM in the way it exists right now is a compromise among countless parties. However there is one thing that can shatter a compromise; and this is web 2.0. New environment dictates new equilibrium. This is pretty much similar to physics low. What it means, that DRM in the way it is now, is already dead. To work out type of DRM requires a willingness of all parties to reassess the situation. The ridiculous law suit from RIAA is an example of that one side is still leaves in the history and doesn’t want to change anything.
Is it bad or good, doesn’t really matter.

Cheers and Happy New Year!!

December 28th, 2006 at 4:32 pm

Access is completely blocked from Denmark, Europe. The screenshot here is from the biggest ISP in Denmark (TDC) and refers to a ruling in the court of Copenhagen against another ISP.

Any other countries that have also blocked access based on local court rulings?

December 28th, 2006 at 4:43 pm

I agree with 26 - saying DRM should is useless is just plain stupid. Mike how about you provide advertising space for free? Not too sure you would be happy if all your profits were pulled from out in front of you like free music would do to muso’s.

And saying that “record companies take all the profits” - yes they do, and its only the non-music stars that are complaining. The rise of an artist from a nobody to a star is a huge risk - its like a VC firm - they take a risk on a person (company) and expect a big return out of them. Making somebody a star costs the Record companies shitloads upon shitloads of dollars - how can you say VC’s are any different?

They take X% of company and expect a massive return. Maybe Sequoia were bastards to Youtube as they ended up with 400+ mil. How the logic any fking different?

Its not - record companies want to make profits like everyone else. The music stars dont give a shit because they earning a crapload anyways, get all the sex they want and get to play music.

So stfu everyone who says “music labels are taking all the money”

December 28th, 2006 at 9:41 pm

@TechTalk
Sovereignty. International Law is a misnomer, as each Sovereign country makes its own laws. International pressures and agreements are used to help provide constancy in the laws of various countries. The problem is that Russia is not a member of the largest agreement that forces IP law, the World Trade Organization. As such (If what I read is true.) if AoMP3 acted within Russian law, then there are only 2 ways to force AoMP3 to do anything. One, by braking Russian Sovereignty (IE War). Two using political pressure force a change in Russian law to be consistent with International IP Law. Either way the RIAA will see not a drop of the money they are demanding.
You are also mistaken in seeing AoMP3 as an international corporation. Even though the site is access able by anyone with an internet connection because the company has no offices or other places of business it falls unitarily under Russian Law as it pertains to the Internet.

December 29th, 2006 at 1:22 am

If it’s ok for U2 to relocate their music publising business from Ireland to the Netherlands to avoid taxes, then it’s ok for me to buy their songs from a business based in Russia instead of the UK where I live to avoid paying higher prices.

December 29th, 2006 at 7:43 pm

Many U.S. companies (such as Accenture) are incorporated offshore so they do not have to comply with US laws and regulations.

If the music companies incorporated in Bermuda, the tax savings realized would probably offset their costs of litigation and music copying.

How will anyone be able to take the RIAA seriously again? US based Joe music lover will have a great addition to his defense: “your honor, please see how the RIAA is trying to extort this website…”

January 15th, 2007 at 4:13 am

The lawsuit is only the beginning and one of the essential steps that must be taken for Big Brother to get at what’s important……the transaction information. Here is how I see it (this in regards only to US residents as they rest of the planet is immune……for now…..). I welcome some correction on this if refinement is in order. Basically the RIAA needs to establish a successful lawsuit against aomp3.com in order to get the default judgement. Lets face it, do you really believe anyone from Russia is going to appear in an US court to answer the charges, of course not. With judgement in hand they can now proceed to step two, that being the attempt to gain access to the cc transactions made to aomp3.com via the clearinghouse (I believe this company is located in a country that will comply with this request, not sure though so please clear this up). After gaining the transaction data they will be able to file individual lawsuits against tax paying citizens of the US. Nothing like biting the hand that is feeding you!!!! While that is occuring a movement will be afoot to block services coming into the US at the core router level as there are not so many a small agency could not easily police them all, ala Denmark. Of course they do not need permission from the people or Congress as this is allowed via the “well intentioned” Patriot Act. It’s simply a matter of time before people with US IP addresses lose the ability to access many of these services as Big Brother will simply step in……..