AllOfMP3.com

AllOfMP3.com is an online music store based in Russia. It has a licensing agreement with the Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems (http://www.roms.ru/romseng/index.html), similar to the agreements Russian radio stations have. The company states that this agreement allows it to legally distribute music from all artists and all labels.

Unlike some US-based music stores such as Apple's iTunes Music Store, AllOfMP3.com charges for the volume of data downloaded, not for individual songs. As of January 15, 2005, the basic price for one gigabyte of downloaded music or video is 20 United States dollars. (This price is often reduced by a complicated system of discounts based on cumulative usage, promotions, and type of payment. These discounts can reduce the effective price of dowloads by up to one-third of the original cost.) The website offers Russian and English user interfaces. Most functions are only accessible to registered users. Registration is free. The store maintains an account balance for each user. The account can be replenished using various payment methods, including through Xrost.com prepaid cards, so that no credit card information has to be revealed to the company. The website used to accept the popular payment method PayPal, though it is said that due to pressure from American record companies and other online music services that PayPal has banned all payments sent to AllofMP3. As a result, it has been impossible to pay with PayPal since late 2004. While the user has a positive balance, they can continue downloading music and videos. To do so, they select the files they are interested in from the store's catalog.

The user can choose from a variety of audio codecs for audio files, including MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, and, for some files, lossless audio codecs. The user can set the codec parameters, including the desired bitrate. The audio files are then encoded and added to the user's download list. In some cases, the user will have to wait until the files are encoded. They can then be downloaded using a web browser, a Microsoft Windows application called "Allofmp3 Explorer", a download manager, or command-line utilities like wget (the "My Downloads" list offers a "list of links" which can be written to a file and used as input for such tools).

The files are unrestricted, i.e. they do not contain digital rights management information. The website also offers free, full-length samples of all songs at a bitrate of 24 kbit/s (roughly equivalent to analog telephone audio quality).

As of 2004, the website occasionally delays front-end requests because of high server load; backend requests such as downloads, however, are usually not delayed, and download speeds are typically around 40-120 kbyte/second on broadband connections.

Legality

The company claims that it is legal in Russia and that the music it distributes is licensed.

The legality of AllofMP3 is currently being tested in Russia. According to a report in The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/22/allofmp3_probe/), a preliminary Moscow City Police investigation resulted in a February 8, 2005 recommendation that AllofMP3 be prosecuted. The IFPI (Internation Federation of the Phonographic Industry) also filed a formal complaint (http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/press/20050222.html) on February 8. However, IFPI's Russian legal advisor, Vladimir Dragunov, admitted in an interview with The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/05/russian_mp3_site/) that because of the structure of Russian copyright law, successful litigation against AllofMP3 appears unlikely.

In March 2005 the Moscow City Prosecutor's office decided that Russian copyright laws do not cover online distribution of creative works, and refused to bring a criminal suit against AllofMP3 because of the lack of corpus delicti. The copyright holders can still file a civil suit, though. [1] (http://net.compulenta.ru/174129/?r1=rss&r2=remote)

Critics of AllofMP3 argue that AllofMP3's low cost, support for DRM-free files, and support of multiple formats suggest that the service is not legal. However, US-based online music stores, such as eMusic.com also offer DRM-free files, and a number of US-based download sites offer multiple formats for files. Moreover, arguments based on US copyright law generally do not apply in Russia, which has a different framework for copyright.

Critics sometimes claim that AllofMP3 must be illegal because it distributes music by some artists, such as The Beatles, despite the fact the their publishers haven't granted permission for their music to be distributed online. However, creative works produced before 1973, which includes most of The Beatles's songs, are public domain in Russia.

AllofMP3 has apparently already lead to new download sites being offered from Russia, such as MP3Search.ru. AllOfMP3.com points to their license from the Russian Organization for Multimedia & Digital Systems (ROMS) (http://www.roms.ru/romseng/index.html), and argues that its activities are legal under Russian law (see the Museekster information under "External links"). In an interview for Museekster.com (http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3interview.htm), representatives of AllOfMP3.com clarified several key subjects such as payments to artists and the legality of the service outside of Russia.

On this latter point, the answer depends on the law in the user's own country; in many Western countries (United States [2] (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000602----000-.html), Canada, European Union nations, Japan, etc.) it is legal to import single copies of copyright-protected works for individual use. U.S. copyright law, however, only permits "importation for the private use of the importer and not for distribution, by any person with respect to no more than one copy or phonorecord of any one work at ay one time" (17 U.S.C. 602(a)(2) (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000602----000-.html)), and defines "copies" and "phonograms" as "material objects" (17 U.S.C. 101 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000101----000-.html)). No material objects are imported by U.S. users of AllofMP3.com, making this argument for legality very implausible in the U.S. It is even more questionable whether it would be legal to resell AllofMP3 downloaded files or broadcast them outside of Russia, and indeed, AllofMP3.com's user rules forbid these activities. Even if AllofMP3.com were found to be illegal in a country outside of Russia, however, an individual user could likely claim immunity as an innocent infringer (e.g., they were unaware that the material they were buying was not allowed in their country of residence.)

Audio quality issues

AllOfMP3.com has been criticized for its use of transcoding to deliver custom encoded files. Transcoding in audio involves the re-encoding of an already compressed file, and is known to diminish audio quality and introduce compression artifacts; files ordered under AllOfMP3.com's "Online Encoding" service are transcoded to the format of the user's choice from 384 kbit/s MP3 files. This has led to some unfavorable reviews of AllOfMP3.com by audiophile communities.

More recently, AllOfMP3.com has introduced an "Online Encoding Exclusive" service, which encodes from lossless or uncompressed formats, and does not suffer transcoding issues.

References

• report in The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/22/allofmp3_probe/)
• US CODE: Title 17,402. Notice of copyright: Phonorecords of sound recordings (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/search/display.html?terms=phonorecord&url=/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000402----000-.html)
• US CODE: Title 17,602. Infringing importation of copies or phonorecords (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/search/display.html?terms=phonorecord&url=/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000602----000-.html)

External links

• AllOfMp3.com official homepage (http://www.allofmp3.com/)
• Information about AllOfMP3.com (http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3info.htm) at Museekster.com (http://www.museekster.com/index2.html), a legal music services portal. Includes an analysis of the legal status of the service, interviews, and tips for customers. (allofmp3 affiliate)
• Discussion of allofmp3.com at fatwallet.com (http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=18&threadid=259565)
• More discussion about whether allofmp3.com is legal (http://www.fadmine.com/allofmp3-legal-cheap-mp3s.html) at fadmine.com (allofmp3.com affiliate).
• Information about ROMS (http://www.roms.ru/romseng/index.html), Russia's copyright licensing service for multimedia and digital content.nl:Allofmp3.com