"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...

Anyone familiar with allofmymp3.com?

It appears to be a Russian-based service where music may be downloaded for
small sums of money, especially when compared to Apple's iTunes or
Napster.


Gets a little slow at certain times of day. At the point when you're ready
to download, it gives you a choice of three quality levels. The best is CD
quality, and the worst is pretty gnarly, but lots of people don't seem to
notice. I haven't had much problem with the selection.

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
news
Our music industry is nuts anyway. They assume too much about their
customers. I use allofmp3 primarily to sample music. If I like it, I buy the
real CD, mainly because I find that liner notes are often very informative.
Or, if someone in my band wants us to learn a certain song, and I need it
TODAY, I'll download it.

When the RIAA sends you a letter you can ask Steve Schear what to do.


"Harry Krause" wrote in message
news
Doug Kanter wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Anyone familiar with allofmymp3.com?

It appears to be a Russian-based service where music may be downloaded
for small sums of money, especially when compared to Apple's iTunes or
Napster.


Gets a little slow at certain times of day. At the point when you're
ready to download, it gives you a choice of three quality levels. The
best is CD quality, and the worst is pretty gnarly, but lots of people
don't seem to notice. I haven't had much problem with the selection.
\

Thanks. There's not much about the service itself, or its ownership, or
anything else on its web site.

I did find this, though:

Since November 2003 the web music merchant www.allofmp3.com, operated by
the Russian company Media Services, has been openly selling some of the
most popular western music at a fraction of the cost of widely touted
American sites. Bottom Line it's Legal for US Citizens.


Allofmymp3 sells the tracks by the megabyte
($.02 per mb) about $.12 per song

Allofmp3 has signed agreements for this with Russian Organization for
Multimedia & Digital Systems http://www.roms.ru

Registration
"According to their license allofmp3, has the right to use musical
compositions by providing downloads. Under the license agreement Allofmp3
pays out fees to ROMS for downloaded materials that are subject to the
Russian Federation Copyright And Related Rights Law.
ROMS is a member of CISAC
http://www.cisac.org - the International
confederation of authors and composers societies. ROMS manages
intellectual rights in the Russian Federation. All third party
distributors licensed by ROMS are required to pay a portion of the revenue
to the ROMS. ROMS in turn, is obligated to pay most of that money (aside
from small portion it needs for operating expenses) to artists. Both
Russian and foreign.
This license is only supposed to allow content to be sold to Russians. The
site doesn't appear to do non-Russian advertising and promotion, though
they do have an English version of the site available (they say its to
address problems with Russian language-encoding standards which existed
they launched but that many Russian nationals living outside of the
country prefer to use the English version for browsing). They claim its a
site created for Russians but those who come to their site
from abroad are welcome and are provided with full service. Sales to
non-Russians are said to be 'insignificant' but I rather think its because
their management has wisely chosen a Russian processor www.cyberplat.com
that does not offer AllofMP3 direct access the information from user
credit cards. They get only notifications about successful transactions.
Plausible deniability is as smart in business as politics.
The Music Industry claims that Allofmp3 is illegal but their own lawyers
tell them "... the music industry doesn't have much chance in succeeding
(if they attack these companies who are using music files on the Internet
under current Russian laws)." Instead they are pushing for changes in
Russian copyright law but progress is glacial.
Chances that the loophole will be closed on short term are low and there
is great resistance to changes.
As for the legality of non-Russian clients downloading from allofmp3 this
is country dependent. In countries with liberal copyright protections,
like the Netherlands, downloading is legal. In countries with stricter
copyright protections its less clear.
MP3's, OGG's, etc are not illegal in the USA and therefore can be
imported. There is also no law against importing music from other
countries (including Russia). Because you are buying this legally in
Russia and then importing to the USA, this should be 100% legit. The only
applicable U.S. law appears to relate to the "Infringing importation of
copies or phonorecords". But even this statute
"...does not apply to importation, for the private use of the importer and
not for distribution..." If MP3's, OGG's etc are in fact considered
phonorecords, U.S. citizens can legally buy these as long if they are for
private use and not for distribution. If MP3s, OGG's etc. are not
considered phonorecords, no import laws apply. The sections of digital
audio recording and sound recording have no
mention of importation.

Bottom line: Downloading from Allofmp3 is legal for U.S. Citizens, as long
as the files are for private use and not for distribution." ~ Steve Schear


- - -

Not much in "the law" is that cut and dried, but it sure seems as if the
service has some decent underpinnings. Interestingly, now that I've looked
over the site, I find it has a nice selection of orchestral recordings of
serious music not readily available in the USA, the pieces performed by
top-drawer Russian orchestras and soloists.

One piece I was looking for, a certain live performance by Richter of the
original, non-orchestrated Pictures at an Exhibition, was not on the site,
but a 1972 version performed by Horowitz was.

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Doug Kanter wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
news
Our music industry is nuts anyway. They assume too much about their
customers. I use allofmp3 primarily to sample music. If I like it, I buy
the real CD, mainly because I find that liner notes are often very
informative. Or, if someone in my band wants us to learn a certain song,
and I need it TODAY, I'll download it.


Insane, indeed. The manufacturing costs for a CD are a small fraction of
what it used to cost to manufacture an LP. The problem is, the music
industry, like the movie industry, just got too damned greedy. We have
several hundred CDs, but I've only purchased a few recently because of the
pricing. Same with DVDs...I just wait for them to show up on the premium
cable channels, and they always seem to, and faster than ever.

Another problem with CDs...there rarely are more than three or four songs
on a CD that I really like...the rest I listen to once and never listen to
again. That's why I prefer downloading and paying for what I want. Three
songs I like, even at 99 cents each via iTunes, is better than three tunes
I like and 11 I don't, for $16.95 on a CD.

The death of the "album" is at hand.