The owners of the now infamous cut price Russian MP3 retail site AllofMP3 have posted that the site will soon recommence trading.

The announcement follows a Russian court decision August 15 that found AllofMP3’s previous CEO was not guilty of breaching Russian copyright laws, and therefore the AllofMP3 service was legal.

EMI, NBC Universal and Time Warner had led the legal case against AllofMP3, with the US Government previously threatening to escalate the dispute regarding AllofMP3 to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

According to AllofMP3, “The service will be resumed in the foreseeable future.”

A Russian court has found the former head of AllofMP3 not guilty of breaching copyright, a decision that finds the now shut AllofMP3 legal under Russian Law.

EMI, NBC Universal and Time Warner took Denis Kvasov to court claiming that AllofMP3’s cheap prices breached copyright laws. AllofMP3 went offline July 2 following continued pressure from the US Government on Russia to shut the site, including an escalation of the dispute to the World Trade Organization. AllofMP3 was also the subject of a lawsuit filed in New York last December that attempted to claim damages of $1.65 trillion.

The judge found that the service was legal as it paid royalties to rights holders via ROMS, a Russian organization which collects and distributes fees for copyright holders.

AllofMP3’s holding company MediaServices continues to operate mp3sparks.com, a nearly identical service to AllofMP3 that offers downloads at significantly cheaper prices to mainstream Western online music retailers.

Previous TechCrunch coverage here.

(in part via CNN)

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.

Embattled grey market music retail site AllOfMP3 has been offline for the last 8 hours at of 2:37 am PST, according to monitoring service Pingdom.

Their sister site AllTunes (see profile here) is still up, and the company has not posted any message about the outage. Still, the sheer amount of force being applied by the U.S. government and the RIAA to shut AllOfMP3 down may eventually kill the service. For more details on their recent history, see our past coverage:

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

Russia-based, DRM-free music download site AllOfMP3 made a brief statement today in response to the RIAA’s $1.65 trillion lawsuit, filed in New York against them. In effect, they told the RIAA to go pound sand:

“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.”

AllOfMP3 may not be around much longer, given that their own government has promised to find a way to shut them down, but they are certainly going out with a little panache.

A number of record labels finally pulled the trigger and filed suit against Russian music site AllofMP3 today. The lawsuit was filed in New York. Given that AllofMP3 maintains that it complies with Russian law, it might not be a stretch to assume that AllofMP3 won’t be showing up for their day in (a U.S.) court.

AllofMP3 is still in business, but under a triage of attacks. Their own government sold them out in U.S. trade negotiations, promising to shut them down. Visa and MasterCard stopped accepting credit card transactions from the site. And now the record labels are on the case.

All of this is great marketing for AllofMP3, but it’s unclear how long the service will last under this kind of pressure. Whatever happens, though, something else will spring up in its place. At the end of the day, the labels will have to choose between suing a very large percentage of the world’s citizens, or else finally coming up with a digital music model that makes sense (meaning, no DRM).

It’s too bad that AllofMP3 is too hot for even Google to handle. After seeing how they’ve bribed, bullied and basically generally rightsholders after the YouTube acquisition, its nice to imagine what they could do on our behalf if they were running AllofMP3 as well. More from Techdirt.

An official document posted to Digg today summarizes an agreement between the U.S. and Russia in which Russia has agreed to close down AllofMP3.com, and any sites that “permit illegal distribution of music and other copyright works.”

The agreement is dated November 19 and posted to the Web site for the Office of the United States Trade Representative. It summarizes the joint efforts of the two countries to fight content piracy, an issue known to be centered in Russia and Eastern Europe.

“This agreement sets the stage for further progress on IPR issues in Russia through the next phase of multilateral negotiations, during which the United States and other WTO members will examine Russia’s IPR regime,” states the document.

The document specifically names AllofMP3.com as an example of the types of Web sites that they will shut down. We contacted AllofMP3.com and the company sent us an official statement stating their legality. It says that the company has offered to remove illegal music at the copyright holders’ requests.

“For months, AllofMP3 has stated the company will comply with the request from any copyright holder to remove any music from the site. However, the company has not heard from the Russian Licensing Societies or the record labels. Perhaps, opt-out requests are not being made because the record labels can’t clear the rights.”

Still, the company is being made an example of for all to see. Russia is instructed to terminate leases for companies that facilitate online piracy, as well as inspect plants regularly, and take criminal action where there is evidence of commercial sale piracy. The government will be expected to begin complying by June 1, 2007.

AllofMP3 is a Russian web service that sells digital music at very low prices without any copy protection. The service, which would clearly be illegal in the U.S. and many other countries, continues to operate apparently legally under Russian law. Our previous coverage of AllofMP3 is here.

AllofMP3 has become the center of attention in major trade negotiations between the U.S. and Russia, and appears to be the only thing stopping Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization. Earlier this week, reports Russian newspaper Kommersant, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab demanded that Russia shut down the service.

AllofMP3 seems to take the demands in stride, reportedly saying that all of the attention from the U.S. government is actually helping to spread the word about their service and increase sales. Kommersant estimates AllofMP3 revenues at $25-$30 million annually.

An AFP story says that the Russian Parliament has given preliminary approval to a new law that could shut AllofMP3 down.

Whatever the outcome to AllofMP3, the service has shown that consumers are willing to pay for high quality DRM-free music. In a time when nearly every new album (and tv show, and movie) is available for download via bittorent sites, we may see an increasing number of big labels try selling music without copy restrictions. Personally, I’m willing to pay for guaranteed quality and download speeds (neither are available via bittorent) if there is no DRM on music (allowing me to burn CDs, port the music to my iPod, etc.). And I’d much rather pay for DRM-free music than get copy protected music for free.

The extremely popular, quasi-legal AllofMP3 site went down over the weekend and is not yet back up. The site currently says “We are sorry but the server is closed for maintainance.”

We’ve written about AllofMP3 a number of times, including a review of their iTunes-like client software and as part of a general review of downloadable music. AllofMP3 offers DRM-free downloadable music in a variety of different formats and quality levels, for $0.02 per MB, far below what legitimate music services charge.

The site has evolved from being a little known cult favororite service to a powerful force in music sales. In April 2006 it was second only to iTunes in U.K. online music sales.

Pressure on Moscow to close the site has been intense and is increasing. In recent comments, Russian President Putin stated that they would do more to fight copyright infringement in order to gain admission to the WTO.

I am a fan of AllOfMP3 because it puts pressure on labels to strip out DRM and keep online prices low. It’s disruptive to a broken business model. I hope it comes back online.

AllofMP3 has released a beta of its latest desktop music library and download tool allTunes. Although the name is an obvious play on iTunes, those farmiliar with AllOFMP3 will know that they are infamous for extremely cheap, high quality and quasi-legal music downloads on the web. allTunes is a windows desktop or smartphone interface to the AllOFMP3 library, allowing users to find and download high quality music easily.

The model is simple, download the application, signup for an account, find music (amongst the 40,000 albums they have) click and download. The price is 2c per megabyte downloaded, which works out to be around $1-1.50 per album, much better than the $0.99c a song at iTunes. The reason the prices are so low is because AllOFMP3 and allTunes operate in Russia, where they claim they are complying with local copyright law and paying royalties back to artists and labels. The legality of the service is questionable, but they have been in operation for years now with no seeming threat to their existance.

The catalog is very broad, I was able to find some rare international music that I hadn’t heard for years, as well as all the usual classics. The preview feature is just awesome, it allows you to listen to a low-quality version of each song from within the player - not just a snippet but the full song (as long as you have credit in your account). I have actually been listening to music all evening just with the preview player - the quality is bearable. For sophisticated audiophiles, allTunes allows you to download your songs in a variety of codes and bitrates, from almost-lossless through to 64kbps MP3.

AllOFMP3 has been a service I have constantly used for years now, and allTunes has made it even better. I am certain these guys get a lot of business, I hope that instead of being shut down it forces the record labels to re-think their pricing strategies.