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ALLOFMP3 FAQ

No other Music Service raises this much questions, because it just seems to good to be true.

Here are some answers on frequently asked questions.

Is Allofmp3 legal?

Is using Allofmp3 legal in my country?

How can Allofmp3 be this cheap?

Is it safe to pay by credit card?

How can Allofmp3 legally offer Beatles and Metallica music?

Will the RIAA or the IFPI have Allofmp3 closed down in the near future?

We are doing our best to follow all discussions and publications about Allofmp3 so we can provide accurate and up to date information.

We would appreciate an email when you have found interesting information regarding Allofmp3.
Is Allofmp3 legal?
The most frequently asked question. We have thoroughly investigated this.

You will not find Allofmp3 in the list of legal music services supported by the IFPI at www.pro-music.org.

Organizations like IFPI and the RIAA are doing their best to avoid any publicity when it comes to the legal services in Russia. There is a loophole in the Russian copyright legislation that makes services like Allofmp3 possible. Apparently this loophole cannot be closed easily. Read more >>

The legal status of Allofmp3

Russian copyright legislation allows phonograms to be performed publicly without the authorization of the copyright owner for broadcasting and cable transmission. (Article 39) The Internet could be deemed to fall under this exemption. The copyrights involved have to be paid to a collecting society. This is the 'loophole' that is referred to in several articles on Allofmp3.

An English translation of the Russian copyright legislation can be found at www.copyrighter.ru

Allofmp3 has signed agreements for this with Russian Organization for Multimedia & Digital Systems (ROMS). According to license № ЛС-ЗМ-02-36 the Internet-project www.allofmp3.com, has the right to use musical compositions by providing downloads. Under the license agreement Allofmp3 pays out fees to ROMS for downloaded materials that are subject to the Russian Federation Copyright And Related Rights Law.

ROMS manages intellectual rights in the Russian Federation. All third party distributors licensed by ROMS are required to pay a portion of the revenue to the ROMS. ROMS in turn, is obligated to pay most of that money (aside from small portion it needs for operating expenses) to artists. Both Russian and foreign.

We have received this confirmation from ROMS:

I can confirm the legality of allofmp3.com You can legally buy/download mp3-songs from this site if it does not breaks the law the national legislation of the country in which you will be during that moment Sorry for my english.
Yours faithfully, the assistant to the lawyer of the Russian society on multimedia and to digital networks (ROMS) www.roms.ru.

Bahanets Roman Igorevich

Interview with Allofmp3

We have interviewed the content manager of Allofmp3, Vadim Medved'ev. He provided us with some useful information. Read the interview.

Interview with ROMS

Roman Bahanets of ROMS has answered our questions with regard to ROMS and the Russian Legal Music Services. He clearly states that Allofmp3 is a fully legal operation. Read our interview.

Press release

We recently received this press release from ROMS that's explains more on how ROMS operates.

The Music Industry's point of view

The Music Industry claims that Allofmp3 is illegal. Their opinion is that recorded music has three sets of rights. The songwriter has the copyright to the song, the artist his own rights in it, and the record label and producers a third set. Allofmp3 is paying the songwriters, via the collection agency ROMS, but they are acting without the permission of the other copyright holders.

Alan Dixon, general counsel of the IFPI explains their position in an article on Guardian.co.uk

We have asked Andy Mincov, a Russian lawyer and webmaster of www.copyrighter.ru, to comment on Alan Dixon's statement. This is what he replied:
"As for the comment on Alan Dixon, I'm not sure what he meant my a Copyright Code during the Soviet era, because there has not been any such document". The Music Industry has not taken any legal action against Allofmp3 or ROMS. IFPI Russia's legal adviser, Vladimir Dragunov, has admitted that legal actions don't have much chance of succeeding. read more

Is using Allofmp3 legal?

In the User Agreement Allofmp3 states that you may not use the service if it is in conflict with the legislation of your country. Allofmp3 has added this as a kind of disclaimer of course.

Every country has its own rules. There is no such thing as a set minimum of international intellectual property standards. That makes it impossible to answer this question in general.

Let's take a closer look at the law in a country with very liberal copyright legislation and a country with strict copyright laws.

Liberal copyright legislation
A country that has very liberal copyright rules is The Netherlands.

Downloading copyrighted material for personal use is legal in this country. Even when the downloader knows the supplier is acting against the law (like uploading with P2Pprograms), this does not make him a copyright infringer. In this perspective it seems highly unlikely that downloading from a licensed supplier like Allofmp3 will be declared illegal.

It is safe to say that Dutch citizens can legally use the Russian music services.

Strict copyright legislation

Now for the country that may well have the strictest rules on copyrights, the USA. A thread in the Fatwallet forums brings some light in his confusing subject. We will not bother you with all the details. Here is a concise version of the interesting parts:

*

“MP3's, OGG's, etc are not illegal in the USA and therefore can be imported. There is also no law against importing music from other countries (including Russia). Because you are buying this legally in Russia and then importing to the USA, this should be 100% legit. For example, assuming that Russian Vodka is illegal to buy in the USA on Sunday, but you buy the Russian Vodka in Moscow on Sunday, then you import it into the USA, you have done nothing wrong. Again, this assumes that 1) it is illegal to buy Russian Vodka on Sunday in the USA 2) it is legal in Moscow and 3) it is legal to import Russian Vodka.”

Title 17 Chapter 6 Sec. 602 of the U.S. Code covers “Infringing importation of copies or phonorecords”. You can find this title here

Subsection (a) tells us:

*

“Importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title, of copies or phonorecords of a work that have been acquired outside the United States is an infringement of the exclusive right to distribute copies or phonorecords under section 106, actionable under section 501.”

So it's illegal you may think. But take a close look at sub (a)(2):

*

“This subsection does not apply to 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 any one time, or by any person arriving from outside the United States with respect to copies or phonorecords forming part of such person's personal baggage;”

If MP3’s, OGG’s etc are in fact considered phonorecords, U.S. citizens can legally buy these as long if they are for private use and not for distribution. If MP3s, OGG’s etc. are not considered phonorecords, no import laws apply. The sections of digital audio recording and sound recording have no mention of importation.

So in layman's terms the bottom line of this discussion is:

*

Downloading from Allofmp3 is legal for U.S. Citizens, as long as the files are for private use and not for distribution.

Please note – This is in no way a legal advice. -- please see our disclaimer.

This is what a more law educated person like the Tech Law Advisor has published regarding this issue:

* Additionally, assuming they have legitimate licenses to distribute the music, they probably are restricted to a certain geographic are via their distribution license. The end user wouldn't be violating any laws but the distributor would. If they don't have legitimate distribution licenses then they obviously have no right to distribute at any price. If they claim to have the licenses the end user might be seen as an innocent infringer if not on notice.

Some interesting discussions about Allofmp3 and the legal issue:

Fatwallet forums

G4techTVforum

CDFreaks forum

How can Allofmp3 be this cheap?
Copyright organizations in Russia, unlike most of their colleagues abroad, are willing to close favorable deals with online music services.

For one thing copyrights for downloads in Russia are more or less equal to the rights radio stations have to pay for broadcasting music.

But the most important factor is that one US dollar is worth lots of rubles. In Russia CDs cost about 100 rubles ($3). So to Russians Allofmp3 is in fact almost as expensive as iTunes to Americans.

Is it safe to pay by credit card?

"I am not going to let my credit card number fall into the hands of Russian mafia". A phrase that appears in almost any discussion about Allofmp3.

This is absolute nonsense. Credit card payments are processed by Chronopay, a third party payment processor in The Netherlands. This company is verified by companies like Visa and Mastercard.

We have been in contact with lots of users. No one has ever reported credit card abuse as a result of payments made to Allofmp3. You are quite safe using your credit card with this company.

How can Allofmp3 legally offer Beatles and Metallica music?

The Beatles and Metallica have not authorized their music to be sold online for anyone. Yet Allofmp3 offers about any Beatles and Metallica album ever released.

There are two reasons:

* Foreign works released before 1973 are not protected in Russia. Russia signed the Berne Convention without the retrospective protection.
* The second reason is that under Russian law a collecting society like ROMS automatically has the right to license ANY intellectual property to Russian distributors, even if the author is not subject to Russian law.

This explains why Allofmp3 can offer music that is not licensed for downloading in the US and Europe, like music by The Beatles or Metallica.


Will the RIAA or the IFPI have Allofmp3 closed down in the near future?

In an article published by the Register IFPI Russia's legal adviser, Vladimir Dragunov, admits:

* "Because of these loopholes we don't have much chance of succeeding if we attack these companies who are using music files on the Internet under current Russian laws."

Chances that the loophole will be closed on short term are low. New copyright legislation is in the offing but it's a painfully slow process. "We have very great resistance to this new law in Russia," says IFPI's Dragunov.

Vadim Mamotin, CIO of Allofmp3 told TechNewsWorld:

* The RIAA didn't address us directly. As far as we know, several legal owners' organizations contacted ROMS -- the equivalent of the RIAA here in Russia -- wishing to obtain more specific information on our service and its legality. No suit was brought against us.

The RIAA and the IFPI were unusually silent so far, but things have changed recently. After long-standing complaints by copyright holders, the Moscow City Police Computer Crimes division has completed an investigation.

Tuesday 22nd February 2005 The Register reported:

*

Moscow prosecutors are considering whether to proceed with a criminal case against Allofmp3.com after Moscow City Police turned over results of a preliminary investigation on 8 February.

In a move calculated to add extra pressure, the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) submitted a formal complaint to the prosecutor’s office on behalf of its members alleging "large-scale copyright infringement". Moscow City Prosecutor’s office has until 10 March to decide whether to proceed with a criminal prosecution.

Friday 4th March 2005 prime-tass.ru published that the Moscow prosecutors rejected to initiate a criminal case against Allofmp3.

*

Moscow, March 4. /Prime-Tass/. The Prosecutor of the Moscow’s South-Western district rejected to initiate a criminal case against distribution of music recordings by AllofMP3.com Internet resource. The Prime-TASS was informed of this by an informed source.

The writ about copyright violations by AllofMP3.com owners was submitted to the Prosecutor’s Office of Moscow’s South-Western administrative district on February 24, 2005 on behalf of the International Federation for Phonogram Industry /IFPI/.

During the investigation the Prosecutors Office found that the AllofMP3.com owners in fact did distribute music recordings via the online resource. However, the holder of right for these recordings did not authorize to distribute them for commercial purposes.

At the same time, the Prosecutor found that the Russian Law on copyright does not qualify Internet in legal terms, whereas the authors’ property rights are extended to distribution of copies of their works by any means. Along with that, the Prosecutor says that from judicial point of view, distribution of any works via Internet is impossible because it would be a digital transfer, whereas the current Russian legislation necessitates corporeal transfer of works only.

Besides that, the Prosecutor concluded that, distribution of works does not result in making a new copy of the work, but only creates conditions for being utilized by end consumer.

On these grounds, the Prosecutor’s Office in Moscow’s South-Western district rejected initiation of a criminal case against the Internet resource officials due to absence of corpus delicti.