Anybody ever used allofmp3.com?

[namkcuR]

Has anybody here ever heard of or used allofmp3.com?

It's like ITunes but it's just a website, and it allows you to purchase music from a huge selection, and it's very, very cheap. Whole albums go for $1-5 for the most part, depending on how many songs are on the album or how long the album is. To put that in perspective, you could purchase all 13 of Queen's original studio records for a total of under $30.

The thing is, I don't know how legal the operation is. I doubt the money being spent is going to any artists or labels - fuck, I'm sure that it's not, because if it did, it wouldn't be this cheap, and artists like Radiohead, who don't even allow ITunes to sell their music, wouldn't allow it to sell their music. So I don't know where the money is going. I also don't know where the files they are selling are coming from - the quality according to them is 128kbps-192kbps, but I don't know if they're actually ripped from CD or if this is just people who have downloaded a shitload of albums via P2P like any of us could and are selling them for cheap.

I don't know, I'm just wondering if any of you can offer any more information about this site.

 

[Chizip]

AllOfMP3.com is an online music store based in Moscow, Russia which was founded in 2000 by Mediaservices, Inc. It has a licensing agreement with the Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems, similar to the agreements Russian radio stations have. AllofMP3 states that this agreement allows it to legally distribute music from all artists and all labels.

On 18 October 2006 the site said it has "plans to release hundreds of thousands of albums free." [1] However, these tracks can only be played in their proprietary player.

On 19 November 2006, Russia, pressured by the United States withholding its membership into the World Trade Organization, agreed to shut down Allofmp3. The site continues to state that they are operating within Russian law and do not expect to be taken down, however.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllOfMP3.com

 

[Canadiens1131]

In Soviet Russia, MP3 rip you from ceedee.

 

[namkcuR]

Anyone else?

 

[namkcuR]

Anybody at all?

 

[barlowdog]

In Soviet Russia, MP3 rip you from ceedee.

Yakov Smirnoff.

I checked the site last night. Lots of music priced cheap. Too bad it might be going down.

 

[Ormus]

It's not legal, according to international copyright law. However, allofmp3.com claims to be legal, by exploiting the deficiencies in Russian copyright law. However, as a condition for admission into the WTO, Russia will be closing those loopholes and actively working to shut the site down. Visa and Mastercard have already taken steps to ensure that you cannot use your cards there directly, although allofmp3.com has apparently used a PayPal-like service to get around that.

Basically, the whole operation is shady. The whole concept reminds me of the fact that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

 

[trojanchick99]

I've been using it for the past few months. I only download bands I dont really care about. Otherwise, I use Itunes. I like it because unlike P2P, I don't worry about viruses, oh and the quality is better.

 

[Chizip]

so it looks like the RIAA is now suing these guys for 1.65 TRILLION DOLLARS

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/12/28/AllofMP3_responds_to_suits/

 

[vaz02]

^ it will never happen.