According to the RIAA at least. In a lawsuit filed in a New York court, the RIAA has demanded that AllofMP3 owes it $1.65 trillion. The debt is the result of 11 million AllofMP3 downloads since Oct. 2006. If you do the math, that equates to $115,000 per track—it’s a good thing the RIAA doesn’t run its own download service.
AllofMP3 has dismissed the charges on its website with this message:
An attempt by the major record labels to use a U.S. court to as part of its campaign against AllofMP3.com is imprudent.
AllofMP3 understands that several US record label companies filed a lawsuit against Mediaservices in New York. This suit is unjustified as AllofMP3.com does not operate in New York. Certainly the labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3.com operates legally in Russia.
In the mean time, AllofMP3.com plans to continue to operate legally and comply with all Russian laws.
I’m gonna go against the grain a bit here and say AllofMP3 really is a bad guy. I’m all for cheap downloads and such, but the artists and, I guess, the labels really do need to be compensated. Oh well, we’ll see how it all plays out. I anticipate the RIAA will soon have an army of ninjas to deploy for situations like these.
RIAA sues AllofMP3 for $1.65 trillion [Zero Paid via Gizmodo]
I don’t see the point of this whole thing… all the RIAA is doing is promoting allofmp3.com, never heard of them BEFORE! Do they actually think they will EVER get anything more then a dime from these guys? The only people profiting from this are the lawyers and the accountants.
I expect traffic at this website site to jump, as newscasters create news about money nobody will ever see regarding a company that doesn’t exist in the eyes of US law – US laws have no effect for foreign corporations… somebody knock the RIAA upside the head for realizing they are simply making things worse for them instead of better.
Jon
if you google a bit, you will find direct from the artist that MOST artist are ALSO in debt to the riaa with the riaa making millions off them. so, your last remark about the artist getting some is is wrong since the riaa will not give them any.
it would be nice if the riaa operated like a REAL biz and took the costs off the top, then split the remaining with the artist in a proper percent… like 20/80 or 40/60. untill that happens, i concider the riaa thieves, and their law suites unconstitutional.
the riaa is a SALESMAN, and should get SALESMAN percentage, usually 20%.
Jon, you never heard of AllOfMp3.com before? Where have you been the last couple of weeks? :-) This has been all over the news and greatly discussed on TechCrunch I believe.. Interestingly Michael Arrington included it in his (almost) list of Web companies he can’t live without, but it didn’t make it into the top 10.
However, AllOfMp3.com and how the RIAA is trying to get them to shut down is definitely a precendence. There are a lot of shady websites that operate in gray areas of law (i.e. Russia and other Eastern European countries where they have better things to do than enforce piracy laws) and that have a huge user community. The Russian government promised the US government they would do something about it, but my best guess is that another incarnation of the website will then popup somewhere else, maybe Sweden, they don’t seem to be much more successful with handling cases like that there (I am referring to the PirateBay.org incident, I hope everybody remembers that).
I don’t think they will ever see any of the money, though. Getting the website to shut down is one thing, finding a responsible person and making them pay money is a totally different one. I think the Russian government would rather get some bribe money and keep it for themselves and tell the US they couldn’t find anybody.
While I see the RIAA as a bunch of bullies, I don’t see an mp3 site that runs in a country where copyright doesn’t matter being any better.
Let me be more specific Sasha, I never heard of allofmp3.com before this whole RIAA mess came up ;-) Basically, they are spinning their wheels wasting time that would be better used actually developing a NEW plan of business… they are not solving problems, only delaying their own demise.
They need somebody at the RIAA who will make decisions and cut their losses, not sit there, suit anybody who downloads music – if they want to give me the job, I would gladly take it. Right now, they have left pandoras box open for too long and there is no way they can put things back to the way they use to be. This is a huge white elephant which, so far, they have completely ignored for reasons that are beyond me – whether due to ignorance or fear I don’t know. They have control over their music and distribution, time to stick your head up and make some really tough decisions damn it!
Again, I got nothing against the RIAA or the artists etc… my problem is with their inaction towards a problem that will lead to their extinction if they don’t get somebody with balls managing them. Fire the CEO and top management, restructure with people NOT in the music industry (hence, no vested interest in keeping status quo) and put in the best minds in technology and finance… there is absolutely no reason why they can’t tell Apple (etc.) to go screw themselves after their contracts expire or give them a lump sum to get out of them, build their own system which they own and become a dominant player within a few years. Tough… yes… lots of people pissed off… absolutely… but you know what… they would gain respect and still be in existence. I got lots of ideas to get out of this mess. Without content, all the mp3s in the world are useless… this is a STRENGTH but instead, RIAA prefers to cower on their way down to oblivion.
I don’t understand this culture of fear that is like a plague in the executive level of far too many companies nowadays. They don’t need more lawsuits, they need to accept things as they are and build a strong future that couldn’t live without them.
Jon
I agree with Sascha, there isn’t much that the US courts can do. This reminds me of a few months ago when a US judge ordered IANA to shutdown spamhous.org, which never happened.
I do wish that something could be done, not so much in this case, I’m sure it won’t be long before, and it probably is already happening, where child porn sites are hosted in countries that don’t care.
Ryan, each country has its own laws, I wouldn’t want the world in any other way (ei: world government)… this keeps people relatively honest. Copyright do have international conventions but it’s up to gov to enforce them.
So the entire problem isn’t RIAA vs allofmp3.com but inaction by Russia to enforce its own obligations under international treaties and negotiations. RIAA should have NOTHING to do, as the article states, this is all bogus and a big waste of time anyhow, as court decisions in the united states have no power in foreign countries. This is just an exercise in futility to further advertise (and grow market share) for the .com site.
Jon
Ryan, pornography is an entirely different beast… but to be quite frank, if this was so much of a big issue with RIAA, all they would need to do is put the url and ip addresses of the “bad” .com on a ban list for root servers and this would all go away within a few minutes. Of course, the masses who hate “censorship” would have a field day, but it would leave a black mark on Russia and cripple any financial gains allofmp3.com make as the US market is THE marketplace in the world.
Basically, RIAA should stop looking at courts, governments and citizens to solve its problems – refocus those efforts internally… they are rotting from the core —> out and until they take radical steps to stop it from festering further, will continue to waste everybodies time and money.
Jon
Actually RIAA is not the bad guy and you guys really need to learn this. IF anything the bad guys are ROMS which is the collection agency in charge of collecting and distributing the royalties. Like the company we have here (the name eludes me) that collections the licensing fees from radio stations and restaurants Elevators etc..
As long as allofmp3.com pays ROMS they are perfectly legal. If Roms then does not attempt to pay who there supposed to pay then shame on roms not allofmp3.com
Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/
Crap RIAA is the bad guy I meant ALLOFMP3.com is not the bad guys :-(
Unlike most here, I HAVE been living in a cave the last couple of weeks. I will bookmark allofmp3.com when I get home. Thanks for the tip.
The pot calling the kettle black.
The truth is both make money from entertainers.
In a perfect world the entertainers would reap most of the rewards from the entertainment business. The world is less than perfect and wherever there is money to be made people will try to make some.
I hope every effort from these cretins to shut down the only affordable music sites on the internet fails! Screw RIAA, screw the labels, and screw iTunes- I would HAPPILY buy music from US based sites and services if they weren’t trying to screw me for a dollar per song – what a joke. My only deepest wish is that we continue to be allowed to buy songs at MARKET VALUE – somewhere between the exorbitant jacking of iTunes and the blatant theft of free downloads – actually, at a price pretty close to that of the Russian sites! Let the FREE MARKET WORK!
Stumbled across this site…..read the threads…..and the final post was like a revelation! I don’t mind paying for music – just not the inexorbitant fees that iTunes try to charge. If the prices weren’t so expensive we wouldn’t all be trawling the net for cheap deals.
You might be interested in the following points…
1. AllOfMP3 has royalty agreements.
2. Said royalty agreements are twice what RIAA pays their artists.
3. European/American music companies don’t want to accept the royalties from AllOfMP3 since that would legitimise AllOfMP3.
U.S. minimum wage is below $5.00 an hour.
In Europe is less than $10.00 dollars a day (not an hour).
In third world countries min wage can be as low as 1.00 dollar a day.
RIAA allows Mexico to sell legitimate CDs for less than $2.00 dollars within that country. Just imagine: a legitimate CD at $15.00 dollars would equal half a month wages in other countries.
Media services sells CD albums for about $1.00 dollar in Russia. Which is an affordable price to pay at that community. The problem is that Media Services went internet with Allofmp3.com. Customers earning $30.00 a month in 3rd world countries, where customers could and can afford a dollar for an album.
Since the web can be access by Americans that earn $250,000.00 dollars a year; the RIAA believes they are loosing money and revenues otherwise (I call it greed).
Therefore it has to be censored, isolated and eliminated if possible… So that we pay higher royalties than if we were residents of another nation (greed).
@Johan Svensson
Correct. I don’t see is said often enough in the press.
AllofMP3 pays royalties to ROMS, Russian equivalent to ASCAP and BMI.
ROMS has tried to write checks to the RIAA. However, because those checks are not for the royalty amount the RIAA SAYS they should be, the RIAA has refused to accept the checks from ROMS.
The bottom line is that the RIAA and maybe the US government if the WTO thing becomes part of this do not want to honor Russian law.
I would like to know why we the people have not banded together to retaliate against the RIAA. What ever happened to good old demonstrating and making headlines like “Citizens Pissed Off At RIAA” or “Politicians Loose Elections Because Of RIAA”.
We all (the posters on all the blogs and forums) talk a good talk. When are WE, the people who pay for the music and movies going to take some action instead of just talking and complaining? Don’t we pay their salaries? Don’t we out number them?
very nice blog
Blog of directtv
it’s all about money. and it goes down the same as the thousand before. out ur hands up, folks, who do believe that a piece of money goes to the artists? imagine RIAA win the case and get the 1.65 tril. you really think at least one artist will have a cent of it? bullshit.
allofmp3.com showed us how nice can be downloading legal service and where to move. unfortunately for all it’s no longer accepting payments (thanks much to RIAA or somewhat, really good pressure on Visa). i heartily recommend y’all to continue using such high quality service and check out another one gem: mp3skyline.com
this one is gonna challenge allofmp3.com along with the other russian siblings :)