AllofMP3 is dead - oops, it had babies. Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Matthew Ingram has a post about the shutdown of AllofMP3, the Russian download site that had 6 million users. It had offered tracks for a few cents, based on their file size.
The site had become a cause celebre for the USA. U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said last year "that if Russia wants to join the WTO, they should shut down the pirate music website [AllOfMP3] that is robbing U.S. recording companies of sales." Funny how the USA takes notice of the WTO when it affects their country, but not when they are found in contravention ie online gambling.
However, as Matthew and Torrent Freak point out, the beast has grown new heads. MP3Sugar and Mp3Sparks are but two Russian sites offering an identical service. Barriers to entry are low and shutting down one site and opening another identical one under another name is a relatively trivial exercise, aside from redirecting traffic. Moreover, the Russian Government can reasonably claim to have complied WTO requests given that the complaints named a particular operator.
posted by John Wilson @ 8:14 AM Permanent Link
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1 Comments:
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At 6:41 PM,
Unknown said...
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No kidding! And lots of babies indeed. There are at least 15 replacements out there all claiming to be the next greatest thing. There is a pretty good list of them at http://www.songboom.com which has reviews and comparisons of pretty much all of them.
