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Visa Cuts Off AllOfMp3.com
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Oct 19, 2006 09:17 AM
from the ends-with-a-whimper dept.
from the ends-with-a-whimper dept.
denebian devil writes "On the heals of allofmp3.com's press conference trying to clean up its image, Visa has suspended its credit card service to allofmp3.com. From the article "[Allofmp3 is] no longer permitted to accept Visa cards," said Simon Barker, a Visa International spokesman. "The action we've taken is in line with legislation passed in Russia and international copyright law."
Almost simultaneously, allofmp3.com has announced that it is shifting over to an ad-supported model. For those who don't want to (or can't) buy allofmp3's DRM-free music, they are providing DRM-laden music that can be played only within a restricted player provided by the website."
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Your Rights Online: Russia Agrees To Shut Down AllOfMP3.com 550 comments
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."
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Your Rights Online: RIAA Goes for the Max Against AllofMP3 777 comments
Spad writes "Zeropaid is reporting that as part of its ongoing lawsuit, the RIAA will be seeking the maximum of $150,000 per song for each of the 11 million MP3s downloaded from the Russian AllofMP3.com between June and October last year. This amounts to roughly $1.65 trillion, probably a tad more than AllofMP3 has made in its lifetime. A representative of AllofMP3 stated: 'AllofMP3 understands that several U.S. record label companies filed a lawsuit against Media Services in New York. This suit is unjustified as AllofMP3 does not operate in New York. Certainly the labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3 operates legally in Russia. In the mean time, AllofMP3 plans to continue to operate legally and comply with all Russian laws.'"
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For everything you want to buy... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:For everything you want to buy... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:For everything you want to buy... (Score:5, Informative)
XROST? (Score:3, Interesting)
I saw the XROST option on there a while ago, but I don't know anything about it or how it works.
Also, I recall at one point there was an option to use some type of "online currency" that was sold in the U.K. at gas stations and retail sto
Re:XROST? (Score:5, Informative)
Not so long ago, XROST still worked with PayPal. Currently, it works primarily with prepaid cash cards - the type you mention - but also with Click&Buy, which is available in the US. I've got family in Europe, so for me it's easiest to Skype them and ask for one of the cash cards.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:For everything you want to buy... (Score:5, Informative)
No, they didn't. Mastercard is the only credit/debit option that works, as of 5 minutes ago.
Re:For everything you want to buy... (Score:5, Informative)
alltunes is also shut off (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15323093/ [msn.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Chronopay only takes:
Mastercard
Diners
JCB
Maestro / Solo / Switch / STB
No VISA
Re:For everything you want to buy... (Score:5, Informative)
Well... here goes. That's what fraud protection is good for.
Well, it worked. Now I've got to figure out $25.25 worth of music that I want. I wish they had audiobooks.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you actually believe that some of this money gets back to the bands/producers?
AllOfMp3.com's Legality (or lack of) (Score:5, Informative)
So, to recap, it seems that media in Russia is still somewhat regarded as belonging to the people. However, this is not true in many other countries.
I cannot say I blame them with the gustapo **AA about.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AllOfMp3.com's Legality (or lack of) (Score:5, Funny)
Not for me thanks.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Possibly because Visa in the US is being floated on the stock exchange. I guess that is because the USA is moving in a rather
Re:AllOfMp3.com's Legality (or lack of) (Score:5, Informative)
Visa makes money off of every transaction.
"Visa" doesn't make money on transactions. The various organizations who own the Visa brand are banking consortia. Their job is to manage the brand name, define payment standards, validate implementations of those standards, and generally do whatever makes sense to facilitate their membership's ability to make money. The Visa organizations are primarily funded by dues paid by the member banks.
When you make a Visa payment, the money passes through two or three sets of hands. It goes like this:
The merchant acquirer and issuer both make money on the transaction, and the clearinghouse, if any, takes another small slice. The issuer obviously also makes money on finance charges if you don't pay your balance off right away.
All of this just highlights the fact that none of these players have any interest at all in shutting off the flow of money to allofmp3. The acquirer that allofmp3 uses is a Russian bank, so they have no legal issues, and plenty of interest in taking a slice of allofmp3's business. The various issuing banks are individually anonymous in the situation, they figure their only responsibility is to make sure that the transactions are not fraudulent -- mainly because they don't want to end up potentially footing the bill for the fraud. The clearinghouses just want to push transactions from point A to point B.
Each player can point to the others and say that it ought to be their decision as to whether or not payments from a certain merchant should be accepted. The most logical decisionmaker as to the legitimacy of the merchant is the acquirer -- and that's the Russian bank for whom there's no legal issue!
I find it quite surprising that Visa International decided to step in and order their members (the organizations who pay them!) not to accept allofmp3.com payments.
Re:AllOfMp3.com's Legality (or lack of) (Score:5, Informative)
Also, here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry for Visa [wikipedia.org] decribing Visa's complex corporate structure.
*
Legally, Visa comprises four non-stock, separately incorporated companies that employ 6000 people worldwide: Visa International Service Association ("VISA"), the worldwide parent entity; Visa U.S.A. Inc.; Visa Canada Association; and Visa Europe Ltd. The latter three separately incorporated regions have the status of group members of Visa International Service Association, whereas the unincorporated regions (Visa Latin America [LAC], Visa Asia Pacific and Visa Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa [CEMEA]) are divisions within VISA.
--Pat
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
(picking myself up off the floor)
Its amazing that a soulless multinational mega corporation took money ?
They only fall in line when the lawyers deem the risk larger than the reward.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>been shifting legality issues to you.
What responsability? There is no responsability for a purchaser of music that is applicable. A buyer is for example
Re:I'm not sure a US court would agree with the la (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but please tell what specific law you have in mind, there really is none.
>The fact that you bought the item in Russia doesn't necessarily
>mean that Russian law applies.
The purchase is done under Russian law if done in Russia. That is allofmp3's responsability. If a person then wants to use what they buy there to break the law in another country is that persons responsability. In the case in question, there is no such law violation though since it is perfectly legal to brgin a copy of a song or music into USA from other countries.
>I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that the AllOfMp3 site violates
>the spirit, if not the letter, of international copyright law.
What spirit? Are you claiming that there is a spirit that says any product with a work protected by copyright can not be moved from one country to another? I suppose someone should tell that to all the stores on international airports selling music CDs. For the record, no, there is no such restriction or anything at all about such restrictions in copyright laws, treaties or that like.
>That being the case, you're correct that the user isn't breaking the law. It's just a
>convenient way for AllOfMp3 to shift the blame:
So allofmp3 is not breaking the law and the buyer is not breaking the law, who is and what law?
>We can't be responsible if US or EU users are downloading content that they shouldn't.
What do you mean "shouldn't"? Either there is some law making it illegal or there is not. It happens to exist no such law.
Re:AllOfMp3.com's Legality (or lack of) (Score:5, Insightful)
>allofmp3 even though it is legal for you to use that site?
What does were you live have to do with it? What law makes it illegal for you to buy the music from Russia if you live in another country? Or are you claiming that USE, Turkey, Japan, South Africa (or whatever other non Russian country you might prefer) have some law forbiding you to purchase from another country? And what would that have to do with copyright who for sure doesn't have such limitations (we are talking of purchase of single number of copies of each song and for personal use, just like if you have bought the CD while in Russia and bring it home with it, just mentioning it so that you don't have to claim anything about import and I have to reply to tell about what is covered by the import part in copyright law and what is not).
Re:AllOfMp3.com's Legality (or lack of) (Score:5, Informative)
>legally have been made in the US, can't be imported to the
>US". Since the Russian law doesn't apply in the US, you
>can't import copies made under that law.
Why do people who don't know the law, insists on making up their own version of it? Here is a link to the relevant law you probably think you are telling about:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/u
Note the exceptions (2), which would be applicable to anyone buying music over the net in single quantities of each work. Thus, it doesn't count as importation and the restrictions you refer to are not applicable and irrellevant.
Thanks Visa! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thanks Visa! (Score:4, Insightful)
Beatport (Score:5, Insightful)
I never had any issues with paying for my music. I had issues with the DRM that was applied to that music. AllofMP3 offered that same music without DRM. If they turn out to be illegal (because the group they pay royalties to turns out not to have to license the music to AllOfMP3) then so be it.
I found an alternative, that better suits my taste of music and is completely legit, but a lot more expensive.
http://www.beatport.com/ [beatport.com]
Dave
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1) No DRM.
2) Legal (with no grey areas like AllOfMp3.com).
3) Multiple high quality encoding options (192 AAC being my choice).
4) Long, high quality previews.
5) A genius Flash int
"Heals" ~ "heels"? (Score:5, Funny)
* groan *
My inner grammar Nazi is involuntarily goose-stepping after reading that.
pain (Score:3, Funny)
Aaaayyyyyy. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Aaaayyyyyy. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Back to piracy then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Great move RIAA...
Take care,
Brian
alternative (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:alternative (Score:4, Informative)
No problem for me (Score:5, Funny)
No way to pay online now? (Score:4, Funny)
Reminder: AllofMP3 uses broadcast rules (Score:5, Informative)
My $0.02 (Score:5, Insightful)
Visa - it's not everywhere you want to be... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to make brand money as a cash replacement (which I assume is what their money cards are attempting to do), then you have to be a open carrier (allowing the end users to deal with the legal responsibility of their use of money). Once Visa picks and chooses what uses of their currency to allow, I have no way to know what the value of their currency is (because I don't know what I can do with it), and there's less point to using it over using cash (potential safety is helpful, but like a gift card, limitation in usage is a significant loss in value).
By announcing this loudly, they're telling their cash card holders that what they're holding isn't really cash, though Visa wishes to sell it as such. Maybe Visa's users will get the message.
Hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd rather go get free music on
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I doubt AllOfMp3's accounts there lasted ten minutes.
I think XROST is their way of getting around the financing problems o
Re:great timing ;( (Score:5, Insightful)
this isnt' a troll post people, get a clue.
it IS true that the mpaa is not the same as law enforcement. and visa is also not law enforcement.
if I wanted to buy playboy mags, will visa 'use their morals' and stop me? no? oh really!
how is this any different. they claim some law is being broken but they can't ennunciate what, exactly that is.
again, I say - if a law is being broken, call the cops. visa is NOT my police force and I object to them even thinking they are allowed to wear that hat.
you KNOW that pressure is put on visa from the record industry. in that light, I see the mpaa/riaa as no worse or better than the 'russian mob'. you can't claim you are following what's good and right and yet be pressured by NON LAW ENFORCEMENT LOBBY GROUPS.
either you are a money brokering business OR you are in the morality and law enforcement business. you cannot be in both. and shouldn't be.
(just because you (mods) may disagree with me - that does NOT make this a troll post. sheesh!)
Re:great timing ;( (Score:5, Insightful)
They aren't in the U.S. There are no treaties involved, no trade agreements either. U.S. law does not apply outside of the U.S., with the exception of us kidnapping people around the world and torturing them to death, which apparently is legal whether anyone else in the world objects or not.
And, to clarify the issue, think of it as people *phoning* a Russian server and listening to recorded music on the phone for a fee. Imagine them recording the sound with an old-fashioned tape recorder. This would break no law in the U.S. or Russia. It's not even a metaphor, it's what we're doing.
Re:RIAA should subpoena list of people from visa (Score:4, Insightful)