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July 2, 2007

AllofMP3 Goes Down In Midst of Much Bigger WTO Scuffle

Michael Arrington

43 comments »

It looks like the RIAA and big music labels have won a battle, if not the war, against massively popular AllOfMP3, a Russian music download site that sells MP3s for as little as two cents per megabyte. The site has been shut down, again, reportedly at the hands of the Russian government.

Russia agreed to force the site to shut down last year, in response to pressure by the U.S. government and the RIAA.

The site has been under constant fire over the last two years. For a brief history of its travails, see our coverage (in chronological order, skip to the end of the list for the most recent stories):

AllofMP3 Down - For Good?
AllofMP3 Outsources Marketing to U.S. Government
Russia Agrees To US Request To Shut Down AllofMP3.com
I Wish Google Could Buy AllofMP3
AllOfMP3 Responds To RIAA’s $1.65 Trillion Lawsuit
AllOfMp3 Down For 8 Hours And Counting

AllOfMP3’s parent company, Media Services, has taken a firm position that the RIAA should go to hell. In a now famous response to a RIAA $1.65 trillion (yes, trillion) lawsuit for copyright infringement, the company said:

“AllofMP3 understands that several U.S. record label companies filed a lawsuit against Media Services in New York,” an unnamed “senior company official” stated. “This suit is unjustified as AllofMP3 does not operate in New York. Certainly the labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3 operates legally in Russia. In the mean time, AllofMP3 plans to continue to operate legally and comply with all Russian laws.”

A new site, very similar to AllOfMP3 and also owned by Media Services, launched simultaneous with the shutdown. MP3Sparks looks to be a clone of AllOfMP3 in all but name.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Monday, July 2nd, 2007 at 6:24 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Jason B.

    July 2nd, 2007 at 6:38 pm

    This is the only issue I side with the RIAA on. Bar none. This site can’t be paying artists if it’s charging prices like that. Still, I agree, I think there are folks at the RIAA who probably will end up in hell. My position always has been with the artists.

    I for one don’t think that art and commercialism mix very well. I wish someone would start a non profit record label who’s goal is to make the artists money, and spread a diverse amount of music around to the world.

    The reason why Internet Radio is getting shut down is the American public is getting turned on to an entire world of great music. Music that doesn’t pad the pockets of the RIAA and subsequent companies pockets.

    Sure they are running a business and they want a return for their shareholders, but I think the rules change when that profit is at the expense of the musical culture of an entire world.

    Down with the RIAA and the rest of those evil executives who want to reduce money going to the artists, and repeatably lie when they say they are looking out for the interests of the artists.

    The RIAA and some children companies stand for:

    Invasion of Privacy. (No I pay for music I’m not a pirate but if I want to make a private torrent to another computer in another home of mine, I should be able to without being spied on, and I will ban AT&T after my contract expires and Apple products if they stay exclusive)

    Paying execs and shareholders the largest premium.

    Paying artists less money

    Suing innocent, hardworking lowerclass Americans.

    Turning Music into a marketing driven money making lame power 1997 MTV with absolutely no diversity.

    Anyone who buys an iPhone, or for that matter any AT&T service after AT&T starts spying on Americans should stop watching Paris Hilton on the news, and realize that real people died for the freedoms you have. If you have trouble understanding what I just said, go watch the HBO series Band of Brothers, and then realize that those people paid their lives so that you could live a life that isn’t controlled by a government and have a real existence outside a giant monstrous spying entity that has the friendly name of government. If you haven’t noticed, I feel extremely strong about this because I think you all need to take a stand as well and I’ll keep preaching this until I feel that others have listened.

  2. Loic

    July 2nd, 2007 at 6:50 pm

    It is interesting to see the last two posts:

    - Local.com saw its stock price rise 52% today after it was awarded a patent.

    - AllOfMp3 reopens as Mp3Sparks and keeps doing copyright infrigement.

    Two countries, and two very different ways to deal with IP and copyright… and I still don’t know which one is the worst!

  3. 80s.mobi

    July 2nd, 2007 at 7:00 pm

    long live 80’s music!

  4. wino

    July 2nd, 2007 at 7:14 pm

    I hate the RIAA but this is a good move. AllofMP3 was nothing but thievery.

  5. Greg

    July 2nd, 2007 at 7:34 pm

    Great, now Lars Ulrich can make that boat payment.

  6. brian

    July 2nd, 2007 at 7:34 pm

    FYI - This thieves AllOfMp3 account was able to login to Mp3Sparks… and my balance was still intact. I’ll be depleting it with a quickness!!!

  7. Mikhail Dubov

    July 2nd, 2007 at 8:22 pm

    The record companies made their statement with shutting down AllOfMp3 but the truth is they will never beat their enemy. Already there are dozens other sites even more user-friendly than Allofmp3 doing exactly the same (i.e.giving only a very small percentage to the record labels). At http://mp3search.ru or http://gomusic.ru you can buy entire albums for about a dollar. Not to mention lots of absolutely free torrent-trackers. Even if now they can manipulate Russian government into fighting pirates (something Russian government does not really care about) because of WTO, there is no way to stop the same in the future. And it can be done in many of the other countries which would never adopt US copyright laws.

    Personally, I agree that downloading those cheap mp3’s is not exactly right but record companies need to change their mind completely over how they apporoach the issue. Just going to court is not the answer.

  8. RIAA to get $1.65 trillion?

    July 2nd, 2007 at 8:34 pm

    RIAA to get $1.65 trillion?!?!!?

    Hahahahhah. that’s is soo funny. RIAA don’t have enough manpower to take over internet line, world wide servers, domain names like .eu, .uk, .au, .cn, etc…, If you are working RIAA or have gray hairs or wannabe corporate crooks and strong believe RIAA can get $1.65 trillion dollar. Do it…. Take over the world…..

    Take over Microsoft or Google or Yahoo or Walmart… And don’t forget Hugo Chávez, Kim Jing II, and other evil lords.

    We don’t care. We just eat popcorn. We got startups.

  9. James

    July 2nd, 2007 at 8:54 pm

    I think it’s legal to download MP3 on Verizon. But RIAA failed to get Verizon. Why?

    They have Amendment IV rights , sherman act rights and won’t let them monoployize the company.

    RIAA refuse to pay verizon’s works but try to sneak or hack verizon IP database. I think RIAA tried to break security brench.

    Watch the move harrison ford’s “FIREWALL”.

    Maybe, RIAA people tried to do something like that. Look for smart net admin and crack the code.

  10. TIPS: On startup

    July 2nd, 2007 at 9:07 pm

    Oh shit. I was reading RIAA on wikipedia and see thousands of lawsuit and privacy problems. When you work on startup. Never give out IP address to RIAA unless they paid. Remember to buy security on your startup.

    RIAA might hired like criminal or hackers or killer to break security or corporate banks. They are real people.

  11. David Mackey

    July 2nd, 2007 at 9:22 pm

    I have to agree with the RIAA on this one as well…Though I’m a fan of musicians getting a bigger cut from the RIAA.

  12. Felix

    July 2nd, 2007 at 9:29 pm

    hehe, allofmp3.ru says that the server is down for maintenance eand will be back up in 7 hours.

    alltunes.com — the side leg of allofmp3.com is up and running.

  13. Tony

    July 2nd, 2007 at 9:51 pm

    Is anyone else thinking what I’m thinking? Putin was just visiting Bush in Maine. Presumably, to talk about missile defense systems in Eastern Europe. I’m thinking somewhere the RIAA played their card at the informal summit… called in a marker. … Or something like that.

  14. jb

    July 2nd, 2007 at 10:45 pm

    it’s ok, once bush finds out that his daughters get their music from allofmp3/mp3sparks, he will pardon mediaservices for any wrong doing they may have done over the past three years. On another note, I remember reading a while back that mediaservices offered the RIAA a cut of the money they take it from their sales to kick back to the artists, however the RIAA turned it down because ‘it wasnt enough’

  15. Block RIAA movement!

    July 2nd, 2007 at 10:45 pm

    Suing $1.65 trillion in Russia?

    What are you doing RIAA?

    You could make russian to shut down the economy, banks, and jobs. People will bag for bread. If this happens RIAA will be responsible for economic corruption. You could put government at risk.

    If Russians sold tanks, bombs, nuclear bombs in axis of evil nation and pay $1.65 trillion to RIAA. RIAA would be first to trigger real life world war 3.
    I’m talking about real war on terrorism.

    Read Inflation article.

  16. Mark Madsen

    July 2nd, 2007 at 11:25 pm

    The Times article was interesting because it referred to AllofMP3 as a large collection of pirated music. Almost as if the RIAA wrote that for them.

    I stopped using AllofMP3 because a musician told me his music was there and he’s using an anti-RIAA label. RIAA won’t accept royalty payments from AllofMP3 because it would legitimize the business while they try to shut them down. At the same time, my friend’s label tried to get royalty payments and say they never received anything.

    At least that’s what they told him. His label could be ripping him off too. So I’ll go back to recording off the radio and forget about this whole downloading thing. In the music publishing business you can’t trust anyone.

  17. Scott

    July 3rd, 2007 at 3:24 am

    MP3Sparks.com launched about 9 months ago, not “simultaneously” with the shutdown of AllOfMP3.

  18. Tim

    July 3rd, 2007 at 4:25 am

    Although I don’t agree with AllOfMp3 not paying the artists, it is the most user friendly and easy to use music download store.

    Yes the prices are too low for payment to go to artists, but someone in the more copyright friendly world should basically copy their store, taking what they currently charge for music as their fee per song and then add 50 cents or something which could go directly to the artist.

    This is of course unless AllOfMp3 has some patents on OnlineEncoding and similar - although I doubt anyone would really care.

  19. Mark

    July 3rd, 2007 at 4:40 am

    While I have used several sites over the last few years, I agree that AllofMP3 was the most user-friendly of the bunch. What I fail to see mentioned is that (a) How can the RIAA justify suing a company that doesn’t operate in the U.S. (b) Why has nobody mentioned the currency difference (1 USD is worth like close to 26 Russian Rubles) and (c) Even if RIAA was victorious how much of that “award” would actually go to the Artists they claim to protect and how much would go to stuff their own coffers? I for one will miss them, but perhaps like Napster they will come back again too.

  20. Andy

    July 3rd, 2007 at 6:19 am

    Mp3Sparks is a bit useless, isn’t it? The only option for topping up your balance is by credit card, but when you go to top up you get a screen telling you that method isn’t available. Fab.

  21. beyondwww

    July 3rd, 2007 at 6:30 am

    Let RIAA go hell, which they eventually will so lets not worry about it.

  22. tgith

    July 3rd, 2007 at 6:46 am

    people if you hate the riaa and drm so much here are your only options for getting even:

    1. buy used cds from third parties online or independent record stores. the money goes to your fellow american, you get a real physical product, convert to unprotected mp3, resell if you decide you don’t like the music.

    2. use emusic and/or other indie services. an amazing array of great music you never knew existed (look at the itunes top 10 songs, they all suck). less than a quarter a track on average.

    with the two methods listed above you will get most of the music you want without giving your money to the riaa or questionable russian companies. end of story.

  23. allofmp3

    July 3rd, 2007 at 7:29 am

    rip allofmp3 :)

  24. John

    July 3rd, 2007 at 7:41 am

    The $1.65 trillion is what kills me! The RIAA is the cat in this cat-vs-mouse game, and as soon as Allofmp3.com is truly down, a few more will pop up. And as soon as Russia cleans up, the same service will be available from other 3rd world countries’ servers. And as soon as they clean up, the music will be available yet elsewhere…there’s no end in sight…I actually enjoy this, it’s quite entertaining to watch!

  25. randy

    July 3rd, 2007 at 10:36 am

    So the allofmp3 folks load their servers on to a pickup truck and head south. Why is this even an issue? Their IP address does not need to be in Russia.

    The RIAA and music industry are the real losers. They lost in 1998, when they decided it would be appropriate to continue charging $25 for a stinkin CD.

    If music CDs were more reasonably priced, at around 3 to 7 dollars, instead of TWENTY OR THIRTY DOLLARS, none of this would be an issue.

  26. tgith

    July 3rd, 2007 at 11:44 am

    most new releases are fairly decent at about 9.99 at your local best buy or circuit city. the real problem is they shoot up to 14.99 within a week of release which is unfair for those who didn’t have a chance to purchase it initially.

    this is where second hand cd sales gain the most traction and rightfully they should. also this is a point where itunes becomes cost effective considering most albums on itunes remain 9.99 you could logically burn to cd and get the same product. kind of defeats the point of raising the price to 14.99

  27. Free iPhone

    July 3rd, 2007 at 12:52 pm

    roflmao, I still laugh at the lawsuit of $1.65 trillion!!!

  28. David

    July 3rd, 2007 at 1:34 pm

    Their is also mp3stor.com which i think was set-up by the same people

  29. Nicola Battista

    July 3rd, 2007 at 2:24 pm

    well, about one of those Russian sites… I recently found accidentally a friend of mine’s music (via Google) onto Mp3cake.com/Mp3fiesta.com… you can read the full story here http://www.happityme.com or (in Italian) here: http://www.musicblob.it/artist.....lakes.html

    Nicola DjB

  30. Miczy

    July 3rd, 2007 at 3:17 pm

    AllOfMP3.com was a nice music download site, but I love GoMusic.ru (aka mp3Search.ru), and it’s still working. Also I love mp3.ua and mp3spy.ru. Let’s try to visit them if you love Russian music download sites!

  31. cass

    July 4th, 2007 at 10:48 pm

    Now, the website is down and you cannot make payments so itunes is the way i guess..

  32. songboom

    July 5th, 2007 at 3:04 am

    It’s called the ‘hydra effect’ : if you cut off one head, another one appears to take it’s place.

    There will always be alternatives, even if Mp3Sparks closes down too: there is a huge list of sites similar to AllOfMP3 at http://www.songboom.com that are reviewed with side-by-side comparisons.

  33. dude2007

    July 8th, 2007 at 2:55 pm

    That sucks that allofmp3 was shut down, I love Russian music and got it from there. Does anyone know a site that sells Russian music (not a Russian site that sells all kinds of music)

  34. ginjerly

    July 8th, 2007 at 7:53 pm

    So MJ doesn’t get any Bling from the Russians or me. So the fat cats got to tighten their belts a little. BFD. Those MF want to charge a buck a hit for nothing but a stream of data? I guess the players at allofmp3 should have greased the Russian phallocrats a bit more.

  35. Jim

    July 10th, 2007 at 2:48 pm

    hahahahaah, that is hilarious. 1.65 trillion!!!! and I love the response by allofmp3

  36. vargas

    July 20th, 2007 at 12:59 am

    Fightin’ a losin’ battle. They might has well throw in the towel now. Allofmp3 closed down only to spring back up again with a different name.

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