Russia Agrees To Shut Down AllOfMP3.com 550
Pro-SEO writes, "An official document (PDF), dated November 19, summarizes an agreement between the U.S. and Russia in which Russia has agreed to close down AllofMP3.com, and any sites that 'permit illegal distribution of music and other copyright works.' The agreement is posted to the Web site for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. It summarizes the joint efforts of the two countries to fight content piracy, an issue in which Russia and Eastern Europe figure prominently." From the document: "This agreement sets the stage for further progress on IPR issues in Russia through the next phase of multilateral negotiations, during which the United States and other WTO members will examine Russia's IPR regime."
The real PlaysForSure (Score:5, Insightful)
So much for the new enlightened Russia... (Score:5, Insightful)
Polonium-210 export is more important than MP3! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Asshats (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder how long this ass-licking of the US will go on. Decreasing value of the dollar, increase of the value of foreign currencies, and by now everyone except the UK is pissed of with how the US brings immense problems to the world, without having the slightest idea how to solve them. Such a democracy we have in Iraq now that the troops will be moved out there, or not? Maybe you can vote for a government, but they'll be blown to pieces by the end of the month.
In any case, I was hoping that of all government leaders at least Putin would have enough backbone to withstand these ridiculous demands of the RIAA^C^C^C^C US government. But maybe on the other hand they just don't give a damn out there in Russia, their citizens will find a way to get their cheap stuff anyway, and the foreign trade of allofmp3 probably wouldn't have gotten into the Russian state anyway, where there's a will, there's always a way to avoid tax. Then so be it, if the governments of the world are all too weak to protect their citizens from the claws of the RIAA (remember the police raiding of pirate bay in Sweden?), then maybe these governments and unfortunately their citizens deserve to be treated like shit.
Re:Asshats (Score:5, Insightful)
And if they do see a corresponding increase in their music sales, will you then realise the opposite?
Western civ, we hardly knew ye... (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the most significant contributions to human rights in all of human history came from Hammurabi - The concept of a written code of laws, which everyone could know and which applied equally to all people, thus making "justice" less subject to the biases of the king / emperor / caliph / whatever. He may not have quite lived up to that ideal, but as a basis for all modern reasonably-fair legal systems, it forms a cornerstone on which we've built everything since.
AllOfMP3, whether the RIAA like it or not, operated within Russian law (or at least, they did so until this past September [techdirt.com]). Whether or not the new law closes the "loophole" (if you can call strong fair-use rights and lax copyright enforcement by-design a "loophole") will have to wait for the Russian authorities to make a case against someone.
Either way, to announce the closing of AllOfMP3 as practically the basis of an international trade agreement strikes me as the most capricious undermining of the concept of modern jurisprudence imagineable. This announcement effectively says "The rule of law does not apply to the king's friends, and its protections do not extend to the king's friends' enemies".
Buildings do not remain standing very long if you undermine their foundations. This should chill us all for a much, MUCH deeper reason than merely the loss of a way to get cheap music. I personally never even used AllOfMP3, and this scares the hell out of me. Imagine the same precedent applied, 20 years or so from now, to the US trying to get some economic favor from China...
How about court decision? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Asshats (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Asshats (Score:5, Insightful)
If you bothered to buy the music from real stores (online, or at a shop), then maybe we'd be seeing some cheaper prices for CD's etc
So back then more people had to buy a CD if they wanted music but did the price ever go down? NO! What people forget is money doesn't magically appear, if someone has no money then them downloading 10,000 illegal tracks online doesn't mean any loss of revenue as they wouldn't be able to purchase the songs legit. Most people tend to be honest when they can and tend to support things that they like, so if the RIAA embraced a legal store on the AllOfMP3 model then it'd be popular as it would provide convenience. People are paying for AllOfMP3.com right now (when they could get it for free on P2P), a similarly priced legit store would make a fortune for the RIAA.
Just like Aljazeera (Score:4, Insightful)
This is akin to American Gov's interest in Aljazeera. Roughly, they come down hard on it whenever they put Al Qaeda info on the English side. Interestingly, they do not mind if the info is on the main arabic site. I have seen what appears to be OBL tapes on the Arabic site, but once it is translated into English, then it gets stopped.
Re:Asshats (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Asshats (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The real PlaysForSure (Score:5, Insightful)
Well if that is true, that's a shame. But he doesn't expect the RIAA to embrace the website; he expects them to embrace what the website offered: Choice of formats without DRM restrictions. Allofmp3, even at 320kbps MP3, was only like 20-30 cents per song and the grandparent rightly supposes that people would pay more for those same choices, even the $0.99 an iTunes track costs. I can vouch for this myself. I do not purchase from iTunes because of the DRM issues (the lack of choice too, but to a lesser extent) but would be happy to pay $0.99 for that 320 kbps MP3 if that is what I want a particular song in.
I doubt Allofmp3 was a charity operation, so they were making money even with the low prices. That means that if the RIAA were to set up an identical system, and increase the prices such that the highest bitrate MP3* was $0.99, they would have roughly 60 cents per download of guaranteed profit on top of whatever the production/distribution costs of the files are that they can split amongst the artists. Does the artist get 60% right now? Heck, even if the RIAA pocketed half I think the artists would still end up making more under this scheme than they do for the current incarnation of iTunes.
That is a different issue. Cinema tickets are a limited resource. Once all the tickets for a show are sold out, they can't sell more. In that sense, losing you as a customer only matters if demand is less than the number of seats available. Otherwise, they simply won't even notice you did not come. If supply is great, they either need to add more show dates (which is not always feasible) or expand the theater size and hope that the next show that comes through has similar demand. If not, they're losing money.
Online music distribution is different. The costs to distribute another copy of a given song are miniscule, nearly negligible. The fact that you only produce that extra cost when somebody purchases the song means you ALWAYS make a profit on expansion. It would be like if every time somebody new wanted a ticket to that cinema show, a new seat--equally as good as every other seat in the place--would spring magically into existence. In this case, if you refused to buy a song because of the cost it would be a direct impact to them. Even if there are five buyers for every non-buyer, they'll still feel it because it's essentially free money to them. They had five sales where they could have had six, instead of having a sell-out where they could have had... a sell-out.
Allofmp3 obviously made this system work at less than $0.99 a song, so it's doable. The only explanation I can think of as to why the RIAA doesn't give it a shot is because they're control freaks who are desperately trying to prove to the world that they were somehow still needed when they really are not.
I'm sure piracy is a problem for them, although I'm also sure it's not nearly as big a problem monetarily as they would have us believe. The don't seem to realize that they can eliminate a large segment of that piracy by offering low-cost products. Pirating a $17 CD might be worth it. Pirating a $0.99 song becomes significantly less so. If I care enough about the song that I would want it at a high bitrate, such as this hypothetical new RIAA service would offer me, it would be even harder to find and less worth pirating.
But meh. Logic doesn't seem to be high atop the RIAA's list of traits.
* I keep mentioning 320kbps MP3 because that's what I got when I wanted a high-quality version. I could do OGG I suppose, but I don't; and honestly, I could personally hear no difference between the 320 MP3 and the FLAC when I compared once.
Re:How about court decision? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
First off, at the end of the day AllofMP3 was not giving artists and production / media companies their required due, so what they were doing was immoral, if technically legal at the time. No matter how you cut it, these goods and services have a value set by the vendor; if the market doesn't want to pay the price demanded, the market can simply not purchase them. It doesn't give people laissez-faire to take other people's work without paying for it. Before I get jumped on by the million-boot slashdot hive mind, I am completely opposed to the RIAA and MPAA and thier ilk, and think they are dinosaurs that should be expunged from the bodies social and politic.
Secondly, the US has vast amounts of wealth, which few other groups have. This is the reason for the "asslicking". How long the US will continue to be comparatively wealthy is another question entirely. Once the greenback stops being the de facto currency of global trade, it will decrease in value sharply, and US spending power with it. The natural inheritor of that throne is the euro; not only is it based in a group of stable democracies with no expansionist ideals, the EU market is what, double or triple the size of the US. Also you have to factor in enrmous foreign debt and a looming housing price collapse. What I do strongly object to is the US tying IP laws to deals for trade with third world nations, thus denying these nations the very means by which the US became so powerful (ignoring IP laws).
Iraq is a nasty snarl up, but to be honest you can lay the blame for that at the feet of Winston Churchill when he drew the lines on the map that bundled a group of unrelated cultures into one single country - fairly typical English ignorance in their colonial matters, I have to say. The most recent debacle involving the US is not going to end well.
This is a bit rambling, but the upshot of my post is, if you don't like the price, don't buy it. Its not like theres a steep barrier to entry. Buy a guitar. If you want to get worldwide audiences with your music and maybe get rich, into bed with the *AA you climb. Or set up your own one.
Oh, well (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Asshats (Score:2, Insightful)
You can instead support a broader sharing culture by supporting pirates and not artists.
Re:Asshats (Score:2, Insightful)
I actually had this conversation with my mother recently, and she agrees that 15 bucks for a CD is retarded. Part of the "high cost" is the staggering amount of profits publishing companies expect from each CD - not how much they are actually worth to the populace at large.
It all boils down to value - i cannot value any cd on the market at 15 Dollars. No way. Wether or not that is its ACTUAL COST is irrelevant - if it doesnt seem valuable to people for the price you have to pay, then people will find alternate methods.
A good example - i've been trying to find a copy of a game i fancy, but so far i can only find the demo. It's pretty good, but it costs 20 bucks to buy. Clearly some reasonable talent went into the game, but i doubt i will get much replay value out of it, as its essentially a beefed up version of Scorched Earth, so itll really be the same game over and over again, therefore killing its value. I would pay 5 or maybe 10 in a heartbeat, but not 20. So they lost a sale and now im looking for "under the table" means of getting it. Ironically, i've failed miserably, but thats my sob story.
Companies have started including easter eggs, video DVD's, and other goodies with CD's to increase their value, which is good, and works better than just staying "deal with it". Although many times, the extra content is lame, and when i get home and put it in my computer itll either install a rootkit, or itll be really lame.
Its not our job to bend to their rules. It is their job, as the provider of a service, to make us want it.
Obviously, they arent doing a good job.
-Red
AoMP3 *did* pay (Score:5, Insightful)
AllofMP3.com did pay money to the local state copyright licensing organisation, as required by Russian law.
(Per Russian law, if you want to broadcast music, all you have to do is to pay that organisation. Which will, in turn take care of sending the money were it's due).
The problem is not at the level of AllofMp3.com. The problem is in the next step : that organisation then in turn paid the money only to local band and other cultural events.
That's because, as other
By shutting down the AllOfMP3.com site, the USA doesn't solve the root problem. They only hide one of the most visible manifestation of the phenomenon.
Nothing technically forbids another company to set up a similar service elsewere (say, a website that sells audio albums in FLAC DRM-less format, and uses international bank-2-bank money transfers as payment). As long as they follow Russian law and pay the money they're supposed to pay to the local copyright company, they won't be illegal.
The real solution would be to find an arrangement between western artists and Russia. But that's highly unlikely, mostly because those artist have signed exclusive rights with the western companies. There for the only possible arrangement is between Russian an western companies. And that's something Russia doesn't want because probably the **AA, IFPI, etc. are going to ask for way too much money and nothing will be left for local projects. That's something Russia want to avoid. Therefor the current solution is what they find best as a way to earn an entry to the WTO.
Be sure to see more AllOfMP3.com clones to appear and go unharmed once the Russia has secured its place within the WTO.
(The Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] has more detailed informations about the problem)
Re:Asshats (Score:5, Insightful)
Allof MP3 offered to pay royalties. All anyone had to do was fill out a form. The **AAs refused to deal with them,
The Russian Organization on Collective Management of Rights of Authors and Other Rightholders in Multimedia, Digital Networks & Visual Arts (ROMS) [www.roms.ru] is the Russian equivalent to RIAA. Until September 1st 2006 the fact that Allofmp3 site payed the requird fees for the distribution of the intellectual property to this organization made the AllOfMp3 distribution legal. It did not made the "reception" of such intellectual property legal on your country but what they were doing was completely legal and moral in their country.
It is as simple as selling mariguana in the Netherlands. It is legal and moral to do it there, and in contrast it is illegal and immoral to sell it on the USA. It is legal to publish DIY methods for mariguana production while in other countries might not be the case.
Now, I do not know if *after* the amendment (see the link) the allofmp3 current practices became illegal, that would need to be tested in A RUSSIAN COURT. I hope it is tried there, and I hope Allofmp3 win. However, we will have to see that int he following months.
Hope this helps.
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, bull. The price is set with the assistance of coercive government monopoly powers; as such most of the price is entirely derived _from_ that particular legal construct, and has little to do with the inherent value of the good. And has nothing whatsoever to do with morality.
"if the market doesn't want to pay the price demanded, the market can simply not purchase them."
Yes, that's how monopolies work and why they're such a destructive force on the wealth of an economy.
In a competetive market, the market can simply purchase the good from another vendor. I dont see five brands of specific modern recordings for sale that often, yet I have no trouble finding five brands of spaghetti in the store.
"Its not like theres a steep barrier to entry."
Mmmhmm. Try duplicating hammers and selling them for a while, then try duplicating a number of CD's and selling them, and I'll betcha you'll notice the barrier to entry fairly soon.
But even ignoring that, and playing along with your train of thought, pick up that guitar and go compete with the payola radio and monopoly financed media blitzes, and you'll find that, oddly, the 'protection' of copyright appears mainly to be protecting the *AA from playing on a level field.
But you knew that already. So, really, take a good look and examine that barrier.
Re:Asshats (Score:5, Insightful)
Under Russian law there is a compulsory licensing; i.e., a fixed rate mediated by a copyright bureau that collects from broadcasters and publishers and disburses payments. Something similar operates in many countries for radio broadcast rights, it's not a "communist" idea, just in case you were thinking that. Of course, if a rights owner and a publisher make their own contract, that will take precedence.
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah.. If they can't afford it why should we care? They are the worthless part of our society, they have no rights to make use of our culture!
I know I shouldn't be feeding trolls, but... by your reasoning, taken to an extreme level why shouldn't social welfare add a lexus purchasing allowance? The "culture" is available for free on the radio and in libraries, and mostly for free on TVs. And another very important point that people like you seem to miss is that by taking up guitars and learning music for themselves, people are creating and enriching their own culture, producing works never before seen or heard, which for my money is a very very good thing. Isn't that how rap and jazz got started?
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you consider they were acting immorally; they obviously didn't consider that a business imperative.
Maybe you consider the laws that govern them were at fault; again, that is not the fault of their business model.
ant.
Re:Asshats (Score:4, Insightful)
Revenue for monopoly protected goods is maximized at a pricing point where a lot of consumers cannot afford the product. A similarly priced legit store may mean more sold tracks, but _less total revenue_ for each particular track. It might mean more money to smaller artists and composers, it might mean more diffrentiated music, it might benefit consumers, but it would not benefit the *AA, so you're not going to get that until the *AA are eradicated.
Re:Asshats (Score:2, Insightful)
The price is set with the assistance of coercive government monopoly powers; as such most of the price is entirely derived _from_ that particular legal construct, and has little to do with the inherent value of the good.
What coercive monopoly? And heres a news flash, nothing has much to do with the inherent value of the good. The prices are set to what the market will bear, no more no less. Same with housing, same with cornflakes. If music seems expensive to you, your element of the market can't bear it, so don't buy it.
Yes, that's how monopolies work and why they're such a destructive force on the wealth of an economy.
I don't see how it is possible to have a monopoly on something that almost anyone can replicate.
In a competetive market, the market can simply purchase the good from another vendor. I dont see five brands of specific modern recordings for sale that often
Ye gods its not spaghetti we're talking about here. There aren't five brands of recordings because the artist didn't sign five contracts. If artists don't like the contracts, they don't have to sign them.
Try duplicating hammers and selling them for a while, then try duplicating a number of CD's and selling them, and I'll betcha you'll notice the barrier to entry fairly soon.
Aha so now we get to the crux of your problem. Its not about the music, its about the distribution, media and advertising. Yes, there is a steep barrier to entry on that, but thats the price you pay if you want to reach large populations. Or it was before the advent of the internet.
you'll find that, oddly, the 'protection' of copyright appears mainly to be protecting the *AA from playing on a level field.
Only if you try to sing other people's songs. Savvy? Write your own. I don't see what's so hard to understand about this.
Re:Asshats (Score:5, Insightful)
Without entering into the moral argument - don't forget that the artists get about $0.50 from your $19.95 CD sale. Google for Courtney Love's article about who the real pirates are, and you'll stop living in the dream world that CD sales make artists rich. They make record company CEOs rich and that's about it.
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll concede that they have the capacity, but the *right* ???
Our rights to get robbed? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, our right to get robbed with a fake legit site and artists not getting anything at all is broken. Very sad!
Only thing allofmp3 has proven is: International users exist besides ~18 countries and they somehow pay for music they get. Yes, I am referencing iTunes store and "you can't buy anything at all, you are a thief!" attitude shown by Apple/RIAA/MPAA for years.
If you really hate RIAA and you love to pay for your music, http://www.magnatunes.com/ [magnatunes.com] , 50% 50% share, quality music, FLAC, Creative Commons, no DRM.
That is what I do besides paying to Real Networks for "radiopass" broadband radio. Paying to a shadowy Russian site knowing the artists not getting anything just to have fake legal music isn't a right of me so I didn't lose anything.
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Asshats (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, I agree. I mean, the guy might have been a war hero who was able to change his mind about his support for the Iraq invasion and who had plenty of experience in government, a general ability to get things done, and a heart in the right place on 99% of the issues, but he had a bad haircut damn it!
Re:Asshats (Score:5, Insightful)
And the rest of the UK certainly hardly gave them a 'resounding' victory. Our electoral system did.
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
People who own copyright don't make laws. Not in my country, anyway. But you're right in one thing, the government listens to them. Nothing to do with morality or legality though.
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
When you said they had "no right" to sell the music. Now youre talking about "feelings". And "using leverage" to put someone out of business doesn't strike me as terribly moral. But they're only foreigners, after all.
Re:Nothing unusual is happening here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes you can. It's called sovereignty. If you don't like it your options are a) destroy that country's government by beating their army with your army or b) convince that government through incentives and international agreements to modify or eliminate that law.
Re:Asshats (Score:2, Insightful)
Under Russian law, they don't, because music is under a compulsory license. We don't need to Godwin the thread to solve this one, as it's merely a correction.
Personally, I happen to believe they should have the right, but not being Putin my opinion doesn't count for much.
Re:I've often wondered.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Asshats (Score:4, Insightful)
Because unlike most cartels, they don't have a stranglehold on supply anymore. The music is out there, and despite all their threats and attempts at litigation, P2P will continue forever if there's not a better business model to thwart piracy. It is in their best interest to stop having such a fix on pricing and back down from the hardass stance a little bit, as fixing pricing and being a hardass isn't going to stop people.
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny how you choose these two music styles: both were started using techniques that would be illegal today (well, they were at the time but people cared less). Both Jazz and Rap are full of adapted musical material produced by others, be it chord sequences, melodies, "standards", scratching or sampling.
Re:Asshats (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So much for the new enlightened Russia... (Score:3, Insightful)
And of course America, if there's enough cash involved.
Re:Asshats (Score:4, Insightful)
Fair point... but it's too little, too late. When Bush is removed from power, or investigated and punished after leaving office, then the world will believe he wasn't acting in the names of most normal Americans.
Unfortunately, we all know he's going to sit out the rest of his term as a lame-duck president, nobody's going to impeach him and by the time he's out of power it'll all be "old news" that nobody wants to rake over again by investigating.
However, when someone has done quite as much as Bush and the Neocons have, supposedly in your names, mere apathetic inaction isn't enough. The American people have to either swiftly and pro-actively either make it clear that you disapprove of his actions, or be condemned to history as supporting him.
This is exactly why many people in the Middle East hate America so much - they either believe you[1] approve of everything your leaders do, or they realise you disagree but know you're too apathetic to actually oppose them.
I think I'd be pretty pissed off if my life was going to hell... and even though the American people disagreed they couldn't be bothered to oppose the guy doing it in their names.
[1] "You the people", or course, not you personally.
"OTOH, I don't see any evidence that the Dems have any clue as to what should be done instead.
That's the problem. The Neocons have romped across America (and the world) unopposed for six years, and the Democrats have been unable to do more than stand idly by, flapping their hands and going "Ooooh, deary me". Kind of links in with the whole "can't even be bothered to oppose him" part, above.
Re:Asshats (Score:4, Insightful)
"People are paying for AllOfMP3.com right now (when they could get it for free on P2P), a similarly priced legit store would make a fortune for the RIAA."
I don't follow. Mechanicals alone are around $0.07 a track by law, and I think that the artist should get at least something. Even if the record label didn't pay the performers at all (perhaps using the common rationale that musicians should be doing it for the love of the art, and not financial reward), it's hard to make money selling tracks at $0.10 when your mechanicals might be more than that. When you sell for less than the cost of production, you can't make that back on volume.
It's clear that as a group, Slashdotters profess a greater knowledge of the supply/demand curve, production costs, and other grim realities of the recording industry, than the record industry itself. This raises the question: why don't you -- or anybody else reading this -- do just that? Start your own online record store, sign artists, pay for production and marketing, and sell albums for a buck each or ten cents a track, just like allofmp3. You said that the existing record companies would make a fortune doing that. Why not make that fortune yourself? The solution is quite clear as day to you -- I think you just need to take the initiative to make it happen.
On a related note, do you have any insight into why Magnatunes isn't more popular? They sell albums for as low as $5, which is almost a third of what they cost in stores. They pay their artists half of the sale price... do you think that's their mistake? Do you think they should go the allofmp3 route and pay artists nothing, then sell albums for $2.50 each? Do you think that Magnatunes are simply being greedy? Could they sell those albums for $1.00 each if they really wanted to?
Re:If you want the benefits of being in the WTO (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm continuously amazed how close-minded Americans are. "US norms and basic fairness" do not automatically translate to the rest of the world. At least in Europe it is common for (naturally) monopolistic markets (e.g. Electrical distribution) to be regulated, with fixed prices. That's what Russia had for music, and that's what the US forced them to abandon.
Now, take a step back and look. In the US, an album costs 15USD, where 50cents to a dollar is for the musician. In Russia, the copyright licensing price is fixed, with an electronic album costing 2USD with 50cents to a dollar for the musician. Which system is more efficient?
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, marijuana is technically *illegal* in the Netherlands. The law is just not enforced anymore. In neither of those places is it immoral to sell 420 as long as you're doing so to consenting adults and selling a pure product (not adulterated with PCP for example).
-b.
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
And AllOfMP3 had nothing to lose by making the offer. If accepted, it would have "legitimized" the arrangement. And if rebuffed, as they knew it had to be, they get to keep the money AND still announce that they'd made the offer, with all of the PR value it entailed.
And as such it worked, because it's obvious that "some people" bought into their PR...
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
I actually work with a few indie bands on my label. We noticed that Lavamus.com (another Russian website) had put our MP3s up for sale. Frankly we usually don't care about piracy and our stuff is all over Pirate Bay (and we think it is flattering), but when people sell our stuff for money, it is kind of lame.
We sent them letters letting them know we don't mind that they sell as long as they give us something , they kept responding that they were protected by ROMs and there would be no compensation forthcoming. We are the furthest thing you will see from RIAA, but in general these people aren't given any money to any artist even if the artist is ok with them selling their music at those prices.
And we aren't on Allofmp3.com, but Lavamus is pretty much the same thing.
If they asked in the first place I don't think we would mind.
Re:How about court decision? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you think THIS is bad, you ought to read up on all the seemingly government ordered assasinations of people opposed to Putin recently. There has been a series of high profile murders. The lesson being that "thou shalt not oppose Putin".
Re:Asshats (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
Say I have $40 dollars.
I have to choose between 20+ very good boardgames, 12+ new very entertaining TV series (22 hours for $14.99), 18+ new somewhat to very entertaining movies, 6+ engrossing books, playing sports, getting massages, and relistening or rewatching something from my now huge collection (400+ dvd's, 30 to 40 seasons of TV shows) and using the money to upgrade from a burger to a steak or perhaps a fine wine.
Now add to that the lack of good music (I recently added "Blue October" - first encountered via a non-commercial copy of their music btw. I would have never bought them "cold" but now I like their music a lot- they are very good!). At one point, you listened to the radio to get exposure to new music. Now you get recommendations from friends, boards, or you look for popular torrents because the radio is all crap/same songs now.
Anyway, so you have $40- the question is what are you going to spend it on? Today you have MANY options. If they want to get a share of your $40, they better lower their prices. Because $22 for a 2 hour CD is not going to fly compared to a new boardgame, a season of TV, and a movie for the same price.
Re:obvious! (Score:3, Insightful)
AllOfMP3.com has shown that you can distribute digital music at a reasonable price and make enough money to cover operating costs. Low cost CDs have shown you can distribute music at a reasonable price and make enough money to cover the cost of paying the musicians (and I can't believe that a 4-person band should cost more than a full orchestra). This seems like enough evidence to show the average consumer that they are being ripped off if they buy a CD, which is why I rarely do anymore (that, and I already have a reasonable sized music collection, so I don't feel compelled to add to it).
Re:Nothing unusual is happening here. (Score:2, Insightful)
That's all well and good that Russia had bad intellectual property laws, and licensing practices, and they would like to fix those practices and laws in order to enter the WTO. The problem here is that they are, instead of trying to work with allofmp3.com, trying to shut it down. Allofmp3.com was doing what it needed to do by getting licensing from ROMS, and since in Russia, that is the entity that gives the licensing, why is the problem with allofmp3.com and not with ROMS? When ROMS changes how it does business, and plays nice with the international recording organization, shouldn't allofmp3.com be given the fair and proper chance to obtain a new license?
If you are following the laws of the country, and the international bodies deem your country's laws to be bad, shouldn't you have the opportunity to change your behaviors to be in compliance with the law? or should you simply be tossed in jail?
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it was not "the market!" It was politics -- the RIAA used the US Government's threat of force to get its desired outcome.
Re:Asshats (Score:1, Insightful)