[eAnic]

Zu allofmp3 habe ich folgendes gefunden

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/mess...hreadid=259565

Verfasst von Dampier (Senior Member)

Date Posted: Jan/19/2004 5:16 PM

I gave up reading after page two in this thread because it filled
with so much guesswork and confusion based on rumors. People are
really basing a lot of this on half-heard reports about RIAA
activity, and applying it to Allofmp3.com, so here comes the reality
check. I've seen the same discussion elsewhere as well.

I have been a customer of Allofmp3.com since last October. I have
spent perhaps $150 there since then (I download music to listen to
while exercising, and I get bored easily). At the beginning, I
wondered about a lot of the same things some of you have been asking,
but was able to get some definitive answers.

First, people need to stop taking whatever the RIAA is claiming as
the gospel truth. They are an industry trade group. Their statements
reflect their position, and is not a journalistic piece filled with
fact checking. The RIAA uses scare tactics precisely because it
generates a buzz which people use to get scared of anything that does
not have the major label seal of approval (at a dollar a holler to
boot.)

Allofmp3 is a completely legitimate operation based in Moscow. They
use cyberplat.ru as their payment processor, and they are also
completely legitimate. Many Russians use cyberplat services for
electronic bill payments. They are internationally recognized
accordingly. Russian copyright law with respect to music works much
differently than in this country. Every nation can have its own laws
and regulations, with different copyright agencies to deal with
payment collection and distribution. The most evil copyright agencies
are actually in the Netherlands and Germany, and they can be a total
pain to deal with. ASCAP and BMI fall in the middle, and then there
are agencies in countries like Spain and the Russian
Federation/Commonwealth of Independent States (excepting Belarus and
the Baltics) which are very easy to deal with. Credit card companies
are free and clear to process these transactions without any fear of
entanglement with the RIAA or the feds.

A blanket license is available to music services in Russia which
permits a single payment for unlimited use of music. Buy the license,
the artists get their pay on a percentage basis, the copyright
agencies get their cut, and the record companies which usually want
to largest cut are themselves cut. They receive either token payments
or none at all. Under Russian law, this is completely legal. Record
companies may not be thrilled, but there is no legal issue with it.

Most of the income earned by Allofmp3 comes from subscribers using
the online encoding option, which requires a few pennies per song in
payment for customized format and bitrate. Money goes to their
copyright license, but most of it is going to pay for the servers and
administration.

The RIAA is fully aware of Allofmp3 and approached Russian officials
to try and shut it down a few years ago. The RIAA lawyers initially
would not even get the time of day out of the Russian authorities -
they were just tossing their letters in the trash. Eventually, the
RIAA was told Russian copyright business is the business of Russia,
and the RIAA should worry about their own affairs. The RIAA inquired
of Russian legal experts about pursuing a case, and they were told it
would be thrown out of court immediately, so forget it. As long as
all of their servers are outside the USA, they cannot be taken to
court domestically either.

That was the end of the RIAA's involvement in Allofmp3. They have no
authority, domestic or international, to affect Allofmp3's
operations. Unlike Puretunes, the Spanish company that got sued by
the RIAA (they had servers in suburban Washington), Allofmp3
maintains no servers in the United States. All of these legal matters
were so two years ago!

Now if the Bush Administration wants to get involved in trade
negotiations over the matter to get Russian laws changed, that's
another matter.

So you have zero risk in becoming an Allofmp3 customer. Cyberplat
uses secure servers and is not run out of someone's basement in
Minsk, so your credit card is safe. Some credit card companies will
call you to verify the transaction was legit, because the assume
online purchases made from Russia are often fraudulent, but this
happened to me only once using a Chase credit card.

Can you download music in the United States legally from Allofmp3?
The RIAA does not want you to think so, but they aren't the law, at
least not yet anyway. You are absolutely within your rights to
download anything from Allofmp3, just as you would be buying a CD
from a Russian music store. Product is licensed for particular
regions, but nothing prevents you from visiting or finding access to
a product in that region. A music release meant only for the European
Community is not going to stay there - importers will be bringing it
in.

You do not have the right to share that music with others, however.

People comparing Kazaa to Allofmp3 have forgotten that Kazaa licenses
nothing - it's a hot swap meet where everything is free. Allofmp3 has
its paperwork in order and has been permitted under that license to
sell internationally. There is no way for the RIAA to track you - you
are downloading music, you are not sharing it on a distribution
system open to everyone.

The FBI is not going to come after you. The RIAA is not going to come
after you. Neither will ever be granted subpoena rights for a
Moscow-based company, so customer lists and other traffic of that
type is off limits to both. The company has been around for more than
two years now. How many people have been sued, harassed, or chased
off the service? Zero.