RIAA Takes on AllofMP3.com for $1.65 Trillion!
It appears the Russian AllofMP3.com has been handed a hefty lawsuit by the RIAA “on behalf of EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music, and Warner Music.” The lawsuit somehow justifies a cost of $150,000 per song downloaded from the site since October 2006. AllofMP3 carries something like 11 million songs so CyberNetNews calculates that out to roughly $1.65 trillion.
AllofMP3 has attempted to be a legitimate music downloading site, which apparently it is according to Russian regulations, however there was definitely something fishy about selling full albums for around $3. AllofMP3 doesn’t pay royalties to artists and is illegal in other countries for this. Perhaps this lawsuit will actually be the end of AllofMP3.com… but then again the RIAA tried to take down The Pirate Bay and it’s still up.
Personally I think the $1.65 trillion is just a number to scare AllofMP3 and the case will likely be settled out of court for much less. Consider typical RIAA cases against pirates. A friend of mine was sued by the RIAA for 3 songs at ~$3,500 each and he ended up settling for something less than $4000 total.
Just as a reminder, I do not support piracy.
IMO, this changes nothing. From what I’ve been told, Russia is a lawless country currently and the only ultimate power is the Kremlin.
As long as Allofmp3.com doesn’t piss them off, the owner should have little to worry about the RIAA. And if they do, what’s stopping them from setting up shop in another country with weak or non-existent IP laws?
AllOfMP3 is not going anywhere - you just can’t kill it. What I’m interested to know is where this new $150k per song figure comes from. Is it just because they suspect each song is downloaded that many times? The scare angle makes a lot of sense because there’s no way they can back up that math.
But, will the lawsuit hold weight, considering AllOfMp3 is in Russia and the suit is filed in the US?
I don’t support piracy either. I buy music from iTunes, eMusic and real music stores (”offline” ones). I like AllOfMp3 purely because they have some music that no other online music store, P2P network or BitTorrent site has. One album I was looking for everywhere was the soundtrack to the movie The Beach. It’s not being sold anywhere online, except on Amazon, and that’s a CD they’ll ship you.
I hope the RIAA loses this case. It’ll be hilarious.
why would AllofMP3 settle out of court when the US courts have no juridisction in Russia? They will just laugh and continue on. No court in the world except those in Russia can scare AllOfMP3 as they have no power. Even the world courts can do nothing - America has ignored rulings by the WTO against them in the past - so the WTO threat to Russia if they don’t change the law and close them down is also moot.
America, keep on dreaming!
i like free music!!!
@”supercool” - then you’d like http://www.jamendo.com
Hi Paul,
You said “however there was definitely something fishy about selling full albums for around $3″ which is true… in the United States. I am an Atlanta native currently living in Ukraine (bordering Russia) and I can tell you selling an album here for $3 is not at all fishy. Even legal ones. (Expensive, actually.)
Consider this: In Ukraine and the average monthly income is less the $50 USD. A loaf of bread costs about $0.30. So, the CD is 10 times the cost of a loaf of bread. iTunes sells most albums for $9.99 I used to buy bread a Publix for $0.99… so my album was also 10 times the cost of a loaf of bread. It’s comparable.
Anyway, I doubt anything will come of this lawsuit. In Russian courts the highest bidder wins. And the recording industry won’t bribe a judge… that’d be stooping too low… oh, wait… nevermind…