July 03, 2007

AllOfMP3 - death and rebirth

Exactly one year ago, the British recording industry has been given permission to sue Russian music website allofmp3.com in the High Court, even if AllOfMP3 was a legal site in Russia. In October, USA decided that Russia had to change their laws and shut down AllOfMP3 in order to be a member of the World Trade Organization, in a economic terrorism move. People from AllOfMp3 fought back, yet in October, telling why their service was legal, and explaining that buying from them, even in USA, was legal, by both Russian and American laws. Of course that pressure kept going up, and Russia finaly setted a day for the law change. So, and while the site wasn't shutted down that day, since the 1st of June AllOfMp3 started being an illegal activity under the Russian law. While I covered it and pointed out a simmilar, but still legal, alternative (Ukranian), the best thing came only recently: the guys who had AllOfMp3 have just launched "a new service" (the same but with different prices and different name, even the user database is the same) called MP3 Sparks, that is basicly the same thing, but with a license from NP FAIR instead of ROMS. I'm still trying to contact them and know if this is the only difference, and, if so, why does this difference suffices to make them legal again, since no one seems to have that explained, but they state that they are legal. If I get more news on this I'll keep you updated.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:36 AM

    You can forget about mp3sparks.com, it is shut down too now.

    ReplyDelete