AllofMP3 Responds to $1.65T RIAA Lawsuit

[Hairbautt]

One week after the Recording Industry Association of America filed a $1.65 trillion dollar lawsuit against Mediaservices -- AllofMP3.com's parent company -- an official blog from the company announced the following:

An attempt by the major record labels to use a U.S. court to as part of its campaign against AllofMP3.com is imprudent.

AllofMP3 understands that several US record label companies filed a lawsuit against Mediaservices in New York. This suit is unjustified as AllofMP3.com does not operate in New York. Certainly the labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3.com operates legally in Russia.

In the mean time, AllofMP3.com plans to continue to operate legally and comply with all Russian laws.

The lawsuit claims that royalties from music sold on the AllofMP3.com site have never been paid to American labels. The suit specifically claims "the Defendant's entire business ... amounts to nothing more than a massive infringement of plaintiffs' exclusive rights under the Copyright Act and New York law." According to Mediaservices counsel, Mediaservices and AllofMP3.com operate solely as Russian enterprises and New York laws do not apply to the company.

AllofMP3.com has been a hot topic for politicians as well. The site was recently singled out as a specific infraction preventing Russia from entering the World Trade Organization. Soon after, The Bilateral Negotiations on Russia's Accession to the World Trade Organization outlined that pirate music websites within Russia will be taken down by June 2007 -- specifically mentioning AllofMP3.com.

Mediaservices counsel, which operates in the U.S., contended the company adheres to Russian laws and pays royalties to the Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems, the Russian equivalent of the RIAA. John Kheit, an intellectual property attorney representing Mediaservices, added that no U.S. labels have ever attempted to claim royalties even though said royalties are earmarked and balanced if labels come forward and request them.

Even if such royalties are maintained, the fact that no U.S. company has come forward to claim royalties seems intuitive: it would give AllofMP3 justification for operating in the country. AllofMP3 also has a profit-sharing model with artists but claims that U.S. artists attempting to claim such profits have also had a difficult time producing documentation proving the rightful ownership of the music.

Earlier this year both Visa and Mastercard pulled credit card portals for the website. Users now must purchase credits through a proxy such as Xrost and then purchase music using the credits.

The Mediaservices website was not functioning at the time of this publication.

Source: DailyTech
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Over a trillion dollars!

[namzuf9]

Did anyone else think of Dr.Evil after reading this?



It does'nt even sound like an amount anyone could take seriously and the RIAA wonder why no one respects their organization.

[4play]

I can see 3 massive problems with this case

1)will anyone from allofmp3 bother turning up in new york to defend their case. how can a new york court close down a russian site ? they can't really so why bother defending costing you money.
my guess is they will turn up, if they can prove they are legal in russia then this ban on visa and mastercard is on tenuious grounds so more money for them.

2)How the riaa can say they are not giving us our money when its set aside in an account waiting for them to come collect it is beyond me. Isnt it their job to collect the money for the labels and artists. Why doesn't a prominent artist step up and say "do your fucking job" to them.

3)Im pretty sure in europe the law is that a company can only be fined something like 50% of its gross profit per year. unless allofmp3 is making 3.3 trillion dollars per year a european court would throw this out for claiming that amount. Of course whatever monetary damges are awarded/if any will go unpaid in the us unless a eu court steps in and says pay up or close down.

[frizshizzle]

riaa are getting too greedy.