Allofmp3

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Allofmp3.com is a Russian online music service . The license agreement of Allofmp3 with the Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems is comparable to the agreements of Russian radio stations . According to the company, this agreement allows Allofmp3 to legally distribute the music of any artist and record label in Russia .

Business model

In contrast to music services from the USA , such as Apple's iTunes Store , Allofmp3.com does not bill for individual songs, but for the volume transferred. From August 13, 2006, until the site was temporarily closed, the base price for one gigabyte of transferred data was 30 US dollars , although this price could drop by up to a third due to a complicated discount system; this happened depending on the download volume, promotions and payment method. The website, which can be displayed in both Russian and English , only offers the majority of its functions to registered users.

Payment Methods

Payment by credit card (VISA and Mastercard) was offered for several years. However, this payment option was discontinued because the credit card companies did not want to be used for "illegal activities". For some time it was also possible to pay by bank transfer (“Pay by a bank wire transfer”) to a bank account in Latvia, as well as payment using prepaid credit with PIN codes that could be purchased on third-party sites (e.g. XRost.biz) . Currently (October 26th, 2009) it is not possible to pay by credit card, this also applies to the alltunes access software.

There was also a discount program: If the sum of the payments (called “balance”) exceeded certain values, a percentage of the payment made was credited as a bonus. When paying by bank transfer, there was an additional 20% discount, which was intended to partially offset the costs of the bank transfer.

technology

The files are available to the user in a variety of audio codec formats including MP3 , Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC . The bit rate for encoding can be selected by the user. The files can be downloaded using a web browser or a Windows application called allTunes (formerly Allofmp3-Explorer). The website contains free excerpts of all songs and entire albums in an audio quality comparable to that of an analog phone call at a bit rate of 24 kbit / s. Unregistered users can preview the complete songs for 30 seconds and registered users. The cost of a piece of music / album is calculated from the file size, with 3 US cents / megabyte being calculated last.

The files do not contain any DRM information, so they can be used without restrictions.

Since 2004, high server loads caused occasional delays in inquiries to the website. The actual downloads running in the background were usually not affected. The download speeds with a broadband connection were between 190 and 250 kByte / s.

From February 2006 the additional program Alltunes download manager / music catalog was offered as a beta version for testing.

Between late October 2006 and mid-December 2006, all songs were offered for free download in a proprietary format. This format (mp3x) could only be played with special software that was available for free download. These songs were DRM protected, but the usual distribution channel remained.

Current

At the beginning of 2006 the service was offline several times for technical reasons . The longest outage lasted five days from May 13th to May 18th, 2006. The website initially showed the message “ … the server is closed for maintainance ” and was temporarily no longer accessible. The websites went online again on May 16, 2006, but no media data could be downloaded for two days. Allofmp3 responded to a request by e-mail as to when the normal function of the service would be available again with reference to problems with servers that should be resolved in a few days: “ We have some technical problems with some servers. It will be fixed in a few days. We're sorry for the inconvenience. ”

From Thursday, May 18, 2006, the service was back in operation for a few days. Downloading titles via the Alltunes client initially worked without any problems if the popular MP3 format was selected. Unusual formats could lead to substantial waiting times, informed a system message during the ordering process. Since then, there have been repeated problems with downloading titles or server performance.

Since Thursday, May 25, 2006, the downloading of media data was again disrupted. The error message appeared: “ Warning! Currently preview for this track is not available due to technical problems. Please check back later. ”

Due to the last failures before the closure of the site, speculation in the online press about an imminent end of the service increased , for example in an article in Spiegel Online in which the author speculated about the near end of Allofmp3 and a connection with the announcement of Vladimir Putin suspected of intensifying the prosecution of copyright violations .

The fact that the archive had gone online again under the name Mp3stor.com and with reduced service was denied by email on May 15, 2006, on the next day. Vladislav Nikulenko: “ We are not related to Allofmp3.com. Mp3stor.com is quite new but rather big mp3 archive. We add 250 albums every day and plan to have 80000 albums by the end of this year. We are now promoting a special action. You have a possibility to obtain a bonus on our site. “So you have nothing to do with the Allofmp3 service, but you are prepared to give a bonus if you give the Allofmp3 account balance. The Allofmp3 user names are not valid there.

Since the end of October 2006, the credit card companies Visa and Mastercard have boycotted the processing of payments to the Russian download service. Apparently the world federation of the phono industry IFPI was behind the measure. A spokesman for IFPI confirmed to the US magazine Ars Technica that IFPI had held talks with Visa to take action against AllofMP3.

The payment method via XRost.biz PIN codes remained, however, with XRost paying via Paysafecard, UKash or ClickandBuy . This payment method also offered the above. Bonus. Since the beginning of March 2007, however, it was no longer possible to buy PIN codes from XRost.

On December 18, 2006, the Moscow-based company Mediaservices, to which u. a. Allofmp3 heard being sued by a number of US music companies. Arista Records, Warner, Capitol Records and UMG Recordings, as well as the US music industry association RIAA, are demanding $ 1.65 trillion in damages from media services ($ 150,000 for each of the 11 million files downloaded). This sum exceeds the total Russian GDP .

As of June 25, 2007, the website was no longer accessible, instead visitors sometimes end up on an information page, according to which the server was shut down for maintenance work. The website mp3sparks.com , behind which the same operator is behind, stepped in . At times, however, this website could no longer be reached. Various forum posts indicated that during this time access with the access software alltunes from the provider allofmp3.com still allowed access.

The mp3Sparks website is now available again, with the provider referring to a license from the Russian Federation for the collective management of copyrighted works ( FAIR ). Before registering for the download, interested parties are informed that they themselves must question the legal conformity of their actions with the relevant laws. However, a “balance refill” (topping up the credit) via the popular credit card companies Visa, Mastercard etc. is not possible “at the moment” (currently). The user is advised of the manual payment via alertpay.com and a money transfer to "cherry.valerie@yahoo.com". (As of May 25, 2012)

Lawsuits that are now running against the operator worldwide have so far been dismissed.

Legal

The company claimed that its offering was licensed and legal in Russia because it had a license from the Rights Exploitation Society ( ROMS ) there. This was investigated in Russia at the urging of the music industry. According to a report in The Register , following a preliminary investigation, Moscow police recommended prosecuting AllOfMP3.com. According to the Russian legal adviser of the IFPI (International Association of the Phonographic Industry), a successful action against the company seemed very unlikely due to Russian copyright law. Finally, the responsible public prosecutor came to the conclusion that there was no need for action. The IFPI, however, continued to deny that Allofmp3 has the necessary licenses to sell the music abroad (e.g. specifically Germany) (a valid license is actually available for Russia).

The consequences for a private user of buying from a service that is legal in Russia but who have no rights to sell abroad have not been conclusively clarified.

According to the new German copyright law ( § 53 Abs. 1 UrhG) a user may reproduce a media file for private use ( § 16 Abs. 2 UrhG), provided that the file does not come from an obviously illegal source. If the music files are provided in Allofmp3 manifestly unlawful disposal is controversial, even if for downloading, as opposed to sharing , have to pay.

In contrast, the legal situation under Swiss copyright law is much clearer. According to this, downloading - be it from Allofmp3 or from any other source - is permitted, provided this is intended for private use (Art. 23 Para. 1 lit. a Swiss Copyright Law ). Unlike the German law just described, Swiss law does not limit this limitation to sources that are not obviously illegal. Even in the context of the ongoing copyright revision, this is unlikely to change.

In May 2005 an attempt was made to issue an interim injunction from the Munich Regional Court I against Allofmp3, stating that Allofmp3 “does not have a license for the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany”. According to this, the provision of music files by Allofmp3 is illegal in Germany, unless Allofmp3 appeals against it. It should be noted, however, that the injunction against Allofmp3 only becomes effective once it has been served on Allofmp3. However, because the temporary injunction was issued without hearing the other side, it cannot necessarily be deduced from this that the injunction was also made known to the operator of Allofmp3 through notification. The applicant has one month after the temporary injunction has been issued to deliver it to the opposing party ( § 929 and § 936 ZPO ). The deadline is extended if the court decision has to be translated into the other party's native language within a reasonable period of time. According to Heise News of July 8, 2005, the temporary injunction had not yet been served on the opposing side, at any rate. There is currently no further information regarding this absolutely necessary delivery. In the event of failure to serve, the temporary injunction has not become legally binding.

At the beginning of July 2005, operators of German websites with hyperlinks to Allofmp3 were warned by the Federal Association of Phono , which regards the offer as illegal . In the case of private individuals (including links that are several years old on a page that is no longer maintained), the amount in dispute was set at € 75,000, which led to a required lawyer fee of around € 3,800. Initially, Heise-Verlag refused to remove the links from its articles in anticipatory obedience. Due to two judgments by the Munich Regional Court, Heise has now removed the links, but is filing a constitutional complaint against these judgments. Ironically, the IFPI itself had listed the web address of Allofmp3 on its website at the beginning for “customer information” and only removed it after external advice. Incidentally, in contrast to others, Heise-Verlag has not yet received a legal warning letter, but only a request to remove the links. The reasons for this are not yet publicly known. In addition to links to Allofmp3, the IFPI also regards positive reporting as aid and thus illegal. How and whether it wants to enforce this remains to be seen.

At the end of October 2006, a Danish court ordered the Swedish Internet service provider Tele2 to block access to Allofmp3. This ruling is a novelty as it calls for censorship practices that are highly controversial and undermine the “free” nature of the Internet. In the meantime, the Internet address of AllofMP3 has been blocked at DNS level for customers of the provider .

On August 15, 2007, the operator of the website was acquitted by a Moscow court. The music companies EMI, NBC, Warner and Universal had sued Allofmp3. However, the judges ruled that Denis Kwasow, owner of the Media Services company, had not violated the copyright, as he had compensated for the rights of use by making payments to the Russian rights administrator ROMS, who in turn passed the money on to the rights holders.

On October 14, 2010, the main judgment of the Munich Higher Regional Court was reviewed by the Federal Court of Justice . Surprisingly for everyone involved, the highest German court made its decision in favor of the legal position of Heise-Verlag on the same day. The music industry's lawsuit was dismissed and the judgment of the Munich Higher Regional Court was overturned. In addition, the plaintiffs must bear the costs of the entire legal dispute. The Federal Court of Justice sets an amount of 250,000 euros as the amount in dispute for the appeal. This ends the legal dispute.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ AllofMP3 defends itself against "discrimination" by credit card companies - heise online, October 20, 2006
  2. ↑ Is AllofMP3 (seemingly) dead? ( Memento from June 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Spiegel Online , May 17, 2006
  3. ↑ AllofMP3 sued for 1.65 trillion ( memento of January 24, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  4. ↑ Permanent maintenance work at AllofMP3.com . heise online, June 29, 2007.
  5. ↑ Russian police probe cheap downloads site . The Register, February 22, 2005 (English)
  6. ↑ Art. 23 para. 1 lit. a URG.
  7. ↑ Copyright revision
  8. ^ LG Munich I, preliminary injunction of May 12, 2005. ( Memento of January 16, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF) Az. 21 O 9161/05.
  9. ↑ a b warnings for links to AllofMP3 . Heise News, July 8, 2005.
  10. ^ Excitement over Danish MP3 judgment . Spiegel Online , October 28, 2006
  11. ↑ Danish provider maintains AllofMP3 ban - heise online, November 24, 2006 - 3:30 pm
  12. ↑ operators acquitted of music site AllofMP3 . tagesschau.de archive, August 15, 2007 - 7:00 p.m.
  13. ^ BGH, judgment of October 14, 2010 , Az. I ZR 191/08, full text.
  14. ↑ Documentation Heise vs. Music industry . heise-online