Looks like December has some nasty surprises in hand for the RIAA. Unfavorable court decisions in the US, The Netherlands and Canada have drawn the attention of all media. In the meantime a more obscure development is going on. The number of foreign users of Legal Music Services in Russia is growing rapidly. Allofmp3.com is very popular among (former) users of Emusic who have been disappointed by the recent changes in the terms of service. A short visit to the Mixtape forums will be an eyeopener for many of you.
The Russian Organization for Multimedia & Digital Systems ( ROMS) is obviously not that picky in giving licenses to Online Music Services. New services seem to appear every day. Websites like Allofmp3.com, Club.mp3search.ru and 3mp3.ru are licensed to offer music by all artists for download at prices that seem to good to be true. Full albums for less than a dollar in an unprotected format. You would suspect that there is some kind of fraud involved, but these services have their paperwork in order to stay in compliance with Russian law. The biggest and most advanced service Allofmp3 is running their service for more than two years and it looks like neither the RIAA nor the IFPI is able to stop its activities. Allofmp3 even manages to offer music no other service is allowed to offer like all Beatles, Stones and Michel Jackson albums.How can these services get away with this? Can the RIAA or the IFPI really do nothing to end this situation? The fact that they somehow seem to avoid publishing any comment makes you think they are scared out of their wits that the existence of these services goes public.
The music industry only called for laws to regulate Russia’s manufacturing CD industry. Does this mean the Music Download Services in Russia are in the clear? If this is true services like Napster and iTunes Music Store are facing hard times.
