AllOfMP3 No More

It finally happened. After intense pressure from the US Chamber of Commerce, and a brutal 1.65 trillion dollar lawsuit by the RIAA, AllOfMP3 is dead in the water. It all began last summer when US Trade representatives suggested Russia would be held out of the World Trade Organization if AllOfMP3 remained in business. Then the lawsuit last fall and they are effectively shut down.

I bid a fond farewell to AllOfMP3. I found out about this site a few years ago and at first I couldn't believe it was legal. Thousands of albums were available for download at $0.01 per MB. They offered a variety of file formats, and for high-quality mp3s, a full album cost about $2.50. After a bit of research I found out that this Russian site was technically legal. AllOfMP3 paid the standard 15% royalty to ROM, the Russian Organization for Multimedia & digital systems, which is the Russian equivalent of the RIAA. Also, there was no law that restricted the import of their "product" by American consumers. Well, I guess 15% wasn't enough for the American record companies. They are suing AllOfMP3 for $150,000 per downloaded song, the maximum amount allowed. With 11 million songs downloaded, that's over $1.6 trillion! Credit card companies have since stopped processing transactions with AllOfMP3, so they are pretty much out of service (although if you happen to still have funds in the account, you can still download songs). There are rumors that a wealthy Russian business has bought the company and plans to go legit. But say goodbye to the $3 cds.

Personally, I think that paying $0.99 per track, or $15 - $20 per cd, for online music is ridiculous. It's a computer file; no packaging, no booklet. If you want to burn it to cd you have to purchase the cd and any other extras like a jewel case or a label (not to mention the time involved), which ends up costing another $1.50 or so. I can't believe that companies get away with charging this much money when the actual cost of delivering the digital tracks is pennies. Something has got to give. The success of some bands, like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, to distribute their own music (they are still unsigned) is a sign of hope for the future. It suggests that bands don't necessarily need big labels like Warner Bros, Capitol etc.. in order to reach a large audience. I believe that it is important to compensate the artist for the music, but I cannot support the huge markup the record companies tack on. Market forces will ensure that there will always be alternative sources for online music, so I will be keeping my eye out for the next AllOfMP3. In a perfect future, artists will distribute their own online music, all the revenues will go directly to the artist, and the cost will be affordable and more accurately reflect the true cost.