SMH have done a pseudo-research piece on the Russian version of iTunes, allofmp3.com. Thi s site offers un-DRM'ed downloads of mp3s, but even cooler, you can specify what format and what bitrate you want, and the files are created on demand. Best of all, their range is massive, and their prices are low low low! I first stumbled across allofmp3.com a few weeks ago when someone mentioned it in a Slashdot comment, but was a but dubious about the legality of it - however, the SMH column has this to say:

There is no indication in our dealings with allofmp3.com over several weeks that this is one of those dubious enterprises so much loved by the Russian mafia. Our credit card doesn't seem to have been abused, and while we have no legal qualifications, we can't see that it fails to comply with the Berne Convention on copyright. According to the company, "All the materials in the MediaServices projects are available for distribution via internet, according to Licence # LS-3M-02-36 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society."

In the absence of a flexible Australian alternative, this might be something that is worth checking out (though I'd probably stick with the PayPal payment option).

Thats it trog, fund the fuel for the motherlands nukes...

In soviet russia, MP3 downloads you! Thank you and goodnight.

But with the paypal option, that definitely makes things interesting; my first concern would have been credit fraud. But at least that makes things like would make it more appealing to those who don’t want to give their CC details to the crazy Russians.

I don't understand why people are so worried about credit card abuse.

If you see a transaction on your credit card statement that you didn't make, you notify your bank that the transaction is fraudulent, they give you back the money and any interested you paid on it, and the person that hit your account has to prove it wasn't fraudulent. It's ALL in the retailers' court.

It's hard to imagine what more protection consumers would want... unless they need someone to read their statements for them to tell them what they did/didn't purchase.

If you see a transaction on your credit card statement that you didn't make, you notify your bank that the transaction is fraudulent, they give you back the money and any interested you paid on it, and the person that hit your account has to prove it wasn't fraudulent. It's ALL in the retailers' court.

I'm worried about it not really so much for myself (although the sheer slaw of having to go through it would annoy the bejebus out of me) but because its almost always the poor retailer that gets ripped off. If they've already shipped the goods to someone who's ripped off your CC details, then those goods are gone, and (as I understand it) they lose out, because the money is refunded from them, to you.

On the (somewhat off-topic) subject of credit card security, Beepcard is a rockin' idea!

Who wants to read their CC statements, who wants to call their bank? Who wants to be a victim of identity fraud, who wants others to be ripped off? Who wants to propagate CC fraud by using it in dodgey places?

But to get back on point, I would bet a modest amount of money that an Australian purchasing songs from this website is not doing so legally(edit, oops). It's really quite a s***ty article because they just asked one barrister and he didn't give much of an opinion.



last edited by clipto at 10:42:26 29/Apr/04

Licence # LS-3M-02-36 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society.

How would russian legislation apply to Australia? I don't think this in any way indicates it would be legal to download mp3s you've paid for from this site.

That license implies that that site has secure the rights and licenses it needs to do, in accordance with Russian law, to sell and distribute those tracks.

Australian law (as I understand it) allows for Australians to import music without having to pay additional fees to the local Australian licensing organisations (such as APRA).

To get a similar license to create a similar site in Australia (something which I've been trying to do in my spare time), one would need to:

a) get a license from APRA to distribute the 'musical work'
b) get a license from each and every music label for each album you wish to sell ('mechanical work').

Trog : Why do you want to base your site in Australia? Shouldn't you just pick the most accomadating country?

Uber! I'm sick of getting replies back from bigpond music/ninemsn's music and the like that '128kbps is perfectly fine for you'. Now I can get 360kbps goodness :)

Looks pretty good! Unfortunately they don't have much of a range of new Australian music.

ill be they have ever TATU song though!

Heh the site is down now, but how can they be distributing beatles material when I was under the impression the beatles haven't given permission for any of their stuff to be released for downloading. Also they have beatles bootlegs on the site. Heh I think it's a very grey area, but I think i'll be hitting it up while it's still around.

good ole /. - always rely on anything website they touch to get utterly raped beyond use... one wonders if it wasn't ARIA or RIAA who pointed SMH towards the site in the first place, in the hope it'd get bandwidth raped?

I'm going to take a leap of faith and try this out, i've signed up, I think i'll use my CC. Although you can use Paypal it seems.

I made my first order N*E*R*D - Fly or Die, encoded at 256kb with M-PEG 4 AAC, grand cost $1.03 =D it's being encoded now then they send me an email when it's complete and I can download it. I'll let you know how it turns out. I could see myself going nuts on this site there is a huge range.

My opinion on paysites for mp3s.

If I pay for music I want a CD with liner notes, artwork etc. I want to be able to rip it how I want.

it's $1, i pay that for a whole cd of music at awesome quality in any format I want. The cost for the cd I got for $1.03 is $7.42 encoded in WMA 9 Lossless format, so the savings in getting it in AAC or other lossy formats is huge.

it's $1, i pay that for a whole cd of music at awesome quality in any format I want. The cost for the cd I got for $1.03 is $7.42 encoded in WMA 9 Lossless format, so the savings in getting it in AAC or other lossy formats is huge.

Sure it's cheap, but it I'm forking out cash I'd like a proper CD.

Also if I'm going to download music there's no way I'm s***f***ing away ~300MB and $7.42 for each album.

last edited by boondie at 18:19:25 29/Apr/04

are you dumb boondie ? he said its a dollar per cd from the russian site...you want to pay an extra 20 bucks for a little booklet with lyrics and artwork ?
and 300mb ? it says u can choose your bitrate....

Ive just been using the site, have been getting mp3's encoded at 192. It works out at about $1 per album at that quality. The dowloads could be a faster its struggling to get over 20k at the moment. I purchased 1gig worth of downloads for $10 au which is pretty amazing value. Worth checking out if you ask me.

I have to agree with jimor, i cant remember the last time i actually looked at the cd covers for most of my albums. Recorded music is for listning i could care less about the crap that comes with it.

Meh, if I'm paying for music I want a CD.

That site is legally dubious anyway isn't it? Has someone looked into it?

-edit- Seems to be perfectly legal.

last edited by boondie at 19:29:06 29/Apr/04

Meh, if I'm paying for music I want a CD.

wait, so you want to pay 20 times as much, just so u get some cover art?

gwizz download their program for downloading the files, it makes the downloads a bit faster, it only does 1 song at a time but does them at around 45kb/s

wait, so you want to pay 20 times as much, just so u get some cover art?

Wait. I don't buy CD's.

Why pay for mp3's that I can get for free, CD's are a different matter.

-edit- Seems to be perfectly legal.

It does not.

Why pay for mp3's that I can get for free, CD's are a different matter.

Legal/moral issues aside, theres the quality to consider. This way you can get lossless audio, at a pricepoint that beats spending your time looking for mp3's of comparable quality.

It does not.

On the contrary, it does _SEEM_ to be perfectly legal - hell, it probably is in Russia. But you gotta wonder, how much of that money are the artists setting? Does the RIAA collect fees from the Russian organisation responsible for authorising that sort of thing?

Check out www.roms.ru the russian based issuing agency, it does seem legal and it does seem to be legal with regards to internation copyright agreements. I sent them an email to see if I could get some of the legislation in english, because there website says it is coming soon.

The key word here is "perfectly". It really doesn't leave much up for interpretation.

The barrister said

For end users, the issue is a basic question relevant to acquiring a reproduction of any copyright work: has the rights owner consented

These guys appear to be selling anything and everything, and at a unheard of price. Have all these artists individually consented? Surely not. If its only legal in Russia, then its unreasonable to claim its perfectly legal.

But you never answered my question Trog, any specific reason why you have chosen to go for an Australian based music site rather than choose the most accomadating country?

EDIT : I threw LS-3M-02-36 into google, (the so called licence #) and got 3 articles regarding this site. I'll bet its a made up number.

last edited by clipto at 21:48:38 29/Apr/04

But you never answered my question Trog, any specific reason why you have chosen to go for an Australian based music site rather than choose the most accomadating country?

Mostly, because I don't speak Russian :)

Seriously, no real reason, I just figure that we live in a relatively free, great country, so we should be able to come up with cool ideas and cool systems locally to make them world-class (like I feel we've done with AusGamers and GameArena). I don't want to have to whore off bits to other countries.

Wait. I don't buy CD's.

Why pay for mp3's that I can get for free, CD's are a different matter.

yeah, cause listening to cds instead of mp3s is an entirely different experience.

CUT?

It is actually...

yeah
oh wait, why

cause u get the lyrics inside the cover so u can sing along to them!!!

Cause it's better quality...

bs it is

Cause it's better quality...

what, u can tell a noticeable difference between a 320kbps rip of a cd and the actual thing ? i cant

Lee I'm sure you can't tell the difference between a 64kbps Mp3 and a CD with your s***ty speakers.

(lol my headphones overpowered them lol)

speakers? i use headphones noob

what, u can tell a noticeable difference between a 320kbps rip of a cd and the actual thing ? i cant

No but the higher bitrates cost more and are bigger to download.
You don't know how they rip CD's anyway (yeah it actually matters).

320 CBR is a waste of space anyway which matters when downloading...

No but the higher bitrates cost more and are bigger to download.

320kpbs is what, 7dollars i think someone mentioned ?

Even so its still far cheaper than a cd at the shops here, which was my original point

If you want to support the artists, download their mp3s, then buy their t-shirts/random crap and go to their concerts.

outsmarted noob http://members.optusnet.com.au/joel/5fam_10894618.jpg

ST ANGER DOWN MY NECK

haha its round my neck f***er

man that gif is awesome zulu

The site rocks, have downloaded a truckload of stuff, steer clear at night though the speed of the site goes to crap. On the actuall cd versus mp3 thing, i can tell the difference between the vbr files i get and cd's, but seriously when i play my mp3's via xbmc (xbox) i dont hear $20 per album worth of difference. I have over 200 cd's that ive bought over the year so this sort of saving would make a big difference for the future of my bank balance. As long as the site is legal ill keep using it. Btw i think the western Mp3 companies Itunes et all could learn quite a lot from this site (not the price neccesarily) providing the file type and quality i want is what i call customer service, none of this "oh you can have wma at this quality.... no its good and it all you actually need" Im sure the record companies have some say in the format chosen but those bastards have never cared about giving the customers what they want, i dont think there would be digital music (i know cd is digital) if it were up to the big companies. thanks to imitation for the dloader tip, have found it and it works great. Whew what a long post, im tired now might go back to bed :)

gardian.co.uk article

The issue is that recorded music has three sets of rights to be argued over. The songwriter has the copyright to the song, the artist his own rights in it, and the record label and producers a third set. While these Russian and Spanish sites may be paying the songwriters, via a collection agency, they are acting without the permission of the other copyright holders.

The Russian sites claim that, under Russian law, foreign record labels releasing music in Russia give up their rights to prevent this. Not so, says Dixon. Such Soviet-era rules were rescinded under "article 47 paragraph 2 of the Russian Copyright Code" years ago. Downloading from such sites would be infringing both British and Russian copyright law, he says.

No evidence has been presented that this is a legal service in Russia or Australia. If it is in fact illegal, its the worst kind of site because they are actually charging money and profiting from piracy, and people will use this site instead of purchase music from legit ones.

If the copyright holders for the Beatles never gave permission for their music to be distributed legally, then how can it legally distribute that music to Australians?

last edited by clipto at 14:48:42 30/Apr/04

Look at this banner then try and tell me the site isn't run by the Russian mafia.

http://www.digitalpants.net/pics/active_banner2_220_en.gif

last edited by Khel at 15:06:08 30/Apr/04

No evidence has been presented that this is a legal service in Russia or Australia.

Evidence HAS been presented - its whether ot not the evidence is true (or valid).

Someone research the berne convention and get back to us.

The owners of the MP3 patient are coming our with a new version of the MP3 file format with Digital rights management

are you people dumb? do you think radio stations pay songwriters for the s*** they play on air?

fkn hail to allofmp3.com

are you people dumb? do you think radio stations pay songwriters for the s*** they play on air?

Radio stations, in Australia, do pay songwriters for the s*** they play on air.

Radio stations have to purchase (as mentioned above) two (at least, I'm only aware of two) licences - one from APRA that covers the musical work, and another which covers the mechanical work.

APRA, in case, takes the revenue generated from radio stations and it goes back proportionately to the artists depending on how much air time they get.

Khel what did I do wrong in those posts?

EDIT : I threw LS-3M-02-36 into google, (the so called licence #) and got 3 articles regarding this site. I'll bet its a made up number.

Uhh maybe you should read up then and contact roms.ru and read some of the berne convention.

Bragging about how much free music you have illegally pirated is, quite obviously, not the sort of thing to talk about here.

Charles Wright is pretty credible ;)

Bragging about how much free music you have illegally pirated is, quite obviously, not the sort of thing to talk about here.

Oh sorry.

Anyway, won't happen again.

last edited by boondie at 16:26:47 30/Apr/04

Evidence HAS been presented - its whether ot not the evidence is true (or valid).

What evidence? The barrister quoted in the article offered no assertions that it was legal. Are you seriously considering this

"All the materials in the
MediaServices projects are available for distribution via internet, according to Licence # LS-3M-02-36 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society."

as evidence? That has nothing to do with Australia, and is probably bulls*** one way or the other anyway, but theres no need to go into that as long as we are talking about Australia.

Uhh maybe you should read up then and contact roms.ru and read some of the berne convention.

No thanks, I'll just stick to pointing out theres been no evidence presented this is legal for Australians, if I happen to be wrong about LS-3M-02-36 being made up its no big deal.

last edited by clipto at 21:48:42 30/Apr/04

trog afaik radio stations(well the commercial ones that i have ties with) do not have to pay for any form of licenses, its a given that once a station receives a CD its their prerogative to play whatever they want and if they play it, great, it gets the artists music out there. that might not be so for the smaller or less commercial stations

Stu: start here - trust me, it ain't free

I was under the impression that Russia doesnt respect international copyright.

If that was ever true it would of been from its days as the USSR, and will of since been changed. That being said I'm sure its very difficult to enforce copyright in Russia.

Yes, Russia has more important things to worry about like a war with Islamic Extremists in Chechnya, and so copyright violations aren't a big enough deal to warrant expending valuable tax payer money tackling for the sake of a few foriegn media conglomorates.

Yeh, what a bummer

as evidence? That has nothing to do with Australia, and is probably bulls*** one way or the other anyway, but theres no need to go into that as long as we are talking about Australia.

Are you mental, If you head to roms.ru you'll see that the licensing body is a government agency. Also if you read up on the berne convention you'll find that Russia is a signatory along with Australia, US, infact nearly every country it is a large International agreement on copyright protection. Clipto you've spoken so much s*** in this thread with out even doing marginal research can you please f*** off and not reply again, unless you can actually quote something from fact and not the grey space between your ears.

I was under the impression that Russia doesnt respect international copyright.

You are wrong.

If you head to roms.ru you'll see that the licensing body is a government agency.

ROMS is not a "Government Agency". Although I never disputed that they were a legitimate organisation of artists. Why would allofmp3.com reference an imaginary orginisation when they can talk about real ones?

Also if you read up on the berne convention you'll find that Russia is a signatory along with Australia, US, infact nearly every country it is a large International agreement on copyright protection.

I simply made a bet that LS-3M-02-36 was bulls*** one way or the other, this could mean its a made up number, doesn't apply, only applies in Russia, or whatever.
No one has supplied any evidence that it is not, except perhaps "go check roms.ru, or the berne convention". As though its news that there is an international treaty on copyright, or that Russia has a organisation of artists...

Clipto you've spoken so much s*** in this thread with out even doing marginal research can you please f*** off and not reply again, unless you can actually quote something from fact and not the grey space between your ears.

Everything I have pointed out has been very simple facts. The barrister in the original article did not say it is legal. No one has ever linked to LS-3M-02-36 and the only reference to it is from allofmp3.com The Beatles copyright holder has never given permission for their works to be distributed digitally, yet here it is, for the first time, apparently being distributed legally.

BTW American courts have set precedent in cases like this (I don't know about .au ones). The copy is being made in the the receivers home, not Russia, so it's not the same as bringing a CD from Russia.

BOODIES A WANKER!!!!!
BOONDIES A WANKER!!!!!

And this thread originally looked like it was going somewhere,then it dropped to a slanging match what a pity!

trog afaik radio stations(well the commercial ones that i have ties with) do not have to pay for any form of licenses, its a given that once a station receives a CD its their prerogative to play whatever they want and if they play it, great, it gets the artists music out there. that might not be so for the smaller or less commercial stations

um no! every broardcaster needs to aquire a licence with APRA, and every public playing of an APRA artists music requires a royalty to be paid, that includes radio, tv, shopping centres, etc. basically if you play someones music in public broardcast (not limited to tv & radio) a royalty needs to be paid. obviously this rule isnt followed to the ninth degree but for major organizations it is a must follow.

Yeah, I've been to a couple of radio stations and they have to keep an accurate list of every song played. Especially during request times when they make the list as they go. Then the list gets sent to the people who organise fees and royalties.

and quite often, especially community radio has strict requirements for local content too (not sure if it applies to commercial radio).

is there actually an english version of that site? I kind of can't read russian. If it was in german I'd be happy, I can sort of figure that s*** out....

At least I figured out which box is the search box heh

THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES THIS SITE ROCKS and I have taken your advise re payment thru pay pal
The quality is brilliant I suggest downloading their explorer for ease of downloading.
As for the critics just remember
Its hard to fly with the Eagles when surrounded by Turkeys.

This is just a quick reply to natslovR and anyone else who cares regarding the Local content that music and indeed television is ment to have. The WTO when making agreements with Australia wanted that rule taken away. This AmeriKan company wanted to be able to saturate the market with whatever they chose. I think Howard actually showed a little backbone for once in his career and did not allow this. You could bet your bottom dollar that if this site were illegal they would have come down on it like a ton of bricks. Or perhaps they are waiting for more people to download. Then they will raid it, issue fines then get the lists of those who downloaded music and fine them as well. Thats just my 2c worth.

i havent read the whole thread, but i thought i might say that ive been signed up with them for the past 3 weeks and they are absolutely awesome with regards to reliability and quality. Only downside is having to purchase either 10$(US) or $20 batches (US).

either than that they kickass and my music collection has doubled since joining them:)

http://members.shaw.ca/magi/games/extras/jokes/pictures/mp3communism.jpg


last edited by demon at 11:40:18 04/Jun/04

LOL