Jonathan Arber
AllOfMP3.com - innovative but probably illegitimate
Russian MP3 download site AllOfMP3.com has once again been accused of violating copyright laws by selling music without permission and not paying any royalties. The site been around for some time, and is undoubtedly hugely popular with many consumers - in the UK it is the second-most popular download source behind iTunes. AllOfMP3 contests that its service is perfectly legal as it pays royalties to the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society (ROMS). While this may be true in Russia, its legality in other countries is less clear, and increased pressure from the US around Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation makes it likely that AllOfMP3 will soon be forced to shut down - it is currently under investigation by the Russian authorities. Comment: Its exact legal status remains unclear, but the US authorities claim that AllOfMP3 operates in a shady manner. They allege that ROMS, which it claims to be licensed to and pay royalties to, has no actual link with any record labels or record industry bodies. In addition, its prices are incredibly low - users can purchase albums for less than $1 - so any royalty payments it does make are likely to be incredibly small. Unsurprisingly, the RIAA, IFPI and other music industry representatives have long called for AllOfMP3 to be shut down, and say that its legal status in Russia is merely an exploitation of a loophole in Russian copyright law. However, from the consumer perspective, AllOfMP3 offers almost an ideal service. Obviously the low pricing is a major factor, but users are also given the choice of downloading songs at a variety of bit-rates and in a variety of file formats, thus ensuring compatibility with whichever digital music player they might be using. Downloads are priced per-Mb rather than at a flat rate, giving users far more choice - they can pay more for a high-quality track, or less for a low-quality version. In addition, all tracks are free of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions, and many consumers have cited this as a key reason why they use the service. Leaving aside the issue of licensing and royalties. While we're not suggesting that service providers abandon DRM completely, AllOfMP3 is undoubtedly doing some things right. The last few months have seen an increasing amount of noise around interoperability, with the French Copyright Law a key example. As digital music services become increasingly mass market, consumers and politicians are slowly starting to question whether what they perceive as the relatively restrictive DRM implemented by Apple and other companies represents good value to the end user. Service providers could look at reviewing their business models to allow more flexibility in terms of both DRM and pricing.
