Several major record labels sued the operator of the Russian music Web site AllofMP3.com, claiming the company has been profiting by selling copies of music without their permission, the Associated Press reports.
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December 21, 2006In the wake of recent publications regarding the obligations that Russia took up to enter WTO and in particular the obligation to shut down illegal websites, AllofMP3 has issued a statement.
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December 1, 2006Losses to copyright holders from piracy in Russia in the first ten months of 2006 exceeded 2.48 billion rubles ($93.1 million), Interfax agency reports.The ministry’s department for economic security said 6,432 criminal cases were launched during the period, against only 2,924 cases in 2005.
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November 17, 2006Controversial Russian MP3 site AllofMP3.com, along with its hosting firm, Mediaservices, has hit back at the credit card companies that banned it from making sales last week, Vnunet.com reports.
Visa International and MasterCard International suspended payment functions for MP3 sales via the site over concerns about the legality of the operation. AllofMP3.com typically charges around 15 cents for a three-minute song and $2 or less for a whole CD and was claiming legality under Russian law.
But the MP3 seller has hit back at the accusations, claiming that “the action taken by the world’s largest payment processors is arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory because Visa and MasterCard lack the authority to adjudicate the legality of AllofMP3’s activities and its determination that the company’s activities were illegal is patently erroneous and without legal merit.
â€AllofMP3 has not been found by any court in the world to be in violation of any law,“ the company said.
The AllofMP3 operation is becoming a major bone of contention between the U.S. and Russia in negotiations to secure Russia a place in the World Trade Organisation.
â€Visa and MasterCard should immediately re-qualify AllofMP3,“ said Vadim Mamotin, director general at the company. â€There is no valid reason and absolutely no legal basis for the action.“
Mamotin claims that Visa and MasterCard made the decision on factors other than legal grounds â€since the decision was not based on an adjudicated verdict by any court in the Russian Federation or, for that matter, anywhere in the world.“
AllofMP3 said it will pursue every course of action, including legal options, to reverse Visa’s and MasterCard’s decision.
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October 24, 2006Russian music download site allofmp3.com insisted it was a legitimate business and said U.S. accusations of piracy were merely an excuse to keep Russia out of the World Trade Organisation, AFP reports.
“The U.S. government is conveniently using allofmp3 as an issue to gain further concessions from Russia,†said company boss Vadim Mamotin and other executives.
“We operate under Russian law, we pay taxes in Russia and we pay royalties,†they said in response to journalists’ questions in an online news conference.
Russia has campaigned for 12 years to join the WTO but the United States is still withholding its endorsement of Moscow’s candidacy — it is the only major economy that has not yet backed Russia’s bid — citing shortcomings in several key trade sectors.
Moscow wants to join the organization both for the prestige of membership and as a means to spur diversification in its own economy, still focused heavily on raw materials export.
But U.S. negotiators have repeatedly returned to the issue of the worldwide music sales of allofmp3.com — protection of intellectual property being a major stumbling block in Russia’s negotiations to join the club.
U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab has placed allofmp3.com on a “notorious markets†list and in a speech last month she accused Russian authorities of allowing the website to operate with impunity.
The music site has a ready market outside Russia as well as at home, offering music tracks for as little as a third of a dollar and entire albums for two dollars, which compares with 99 US cents per track from iTunes.
The website’s executives denied Tuesday that the site had refused to pay royalties for its world-wide music sales.
They said the company had paid royalties to a Russian music society, the Russian Organization for Multimedia and digital Systems (ROMS), but the industry had refused to take such payments from the society.
“ROMS has offered to pay the record companies the royalties they collected but has been rebuffed… As we see it, the record companies really have an issue with ROMS and perhaps the Russian government,†they said.
They insisted the company would go from strength to strength, buoyed by the growth of the Internet, and that it was the record labels whose time was running out.
“They are concerned with making money for themselves not the artists. In our opinion, we and the artists are better off dealing directly with each other. In fact we believe it is the future of the music industry,†they said.
The owner of the website, Denis Kvasov, has been battling a lawsuit in a Moscow court by the international music industry body IFPI.
In a bid to allay U.S. concerns, Russia’s parliament gave preliminary approval last month to a strict new law on intellectual property rights that Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry
Medvedev said would bring Russian in line with Western demands.
But more widely, Russia’s negotiations to join the WTO have been hampered by Washington’s increasingly tough stance towards Moscow on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program.
Russia is the only major world economy not in the World Trade Organisation.
In Tuesday’s news conference the website’s executives refused to reveal details of the company’s finances.
The Kommersant daily estimated earlier the annual turn-over of allofmp3.com at between 25 million and 30 million dollars (20 million and 23 million euros)
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October 18, 2006
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