June 1, 2007 Deadline for Allofmp3 Shutdown

Update: I replaced inaccurate info about March 15 deadline with accurate info about June 1 deadline.

"The agreement is dated November 19 and posted to the Web site for the Office of the United States Trade Representative. It summarizes the joint efforts of the two countries to fight content piracy, an issue known to be centered in Russia and Eastern Europe.

“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,” states the document.

The document specifically names AllofMP3.com as an example of the types of Web sites that they will shut down. We contacted AllofMP3.com and the company sent us an official statement stating their legality. It says that the company has offered to remove illegal music at the copyright holders’ requests." TechCrunch

The U.S. pressure on Russian authorities to target Allofmp3.com appears to be working. I'm no Russian legal expert, and I have absolutely no clue how this will proceed, but it really doesn't matter. At this point, it's almost impossible to load money onto Allofmp3. The question is, if the Russians shutdown Allofmp3, what will happen to the other Russian music sites?

No matter, there are still the Ukranian Sites:
http://www.mp3city.com.ua/
http://mclub.te.net.ua/
http://www.mp3.ua/
Allofmp3 may even join them.

New Forum

On my blog and Squidoo lens, discussion is challenging. So, I've created a Russian Mp3 Sites Forum.

What's the deal with Xrost

To load money onto Allofmp3.com, it used to be:
1) Go to http://www.xrost.biz and put money on a card
2) Go to http://account.allofmp3.com/pays/payments.shtml?action=step2&via=xrost
Login and Deposit.

But this message has been up on Xrost.biz for much longer than 48 hours:

" Dear valued customer,

As part of our ongoing effort to improve the payment platform, we will be performing a scheduled server maintenance. The payment option at our site will be restored in 48 hours.

Sincerely, Xrost Team "

Without Xrost, it's hard to load money onto Allofmp3. There are plenty of other Russian Mp3 sites that allow you can use a credit card, but I hope they return.

Anyone know what's going on?

AlloffMp3.org: Great DJ resource

Update: Alloffmp3.org songs are only 192 Kbs, too low quality for most DJs.

After reading this review below, I searched alloffmp3.org for a few obscure artists and I was amazed at the depth of their selection. There is content on alloffmp3.org that cannot be found anywhere else. I received this comment in response to an earlier post and I'm reposting it in its entirety.

DJ Ross Lloyd (UK) said...

Hi there, I was looking around for some mp3s and found them on alloffmp3.org. I signed up paid my money and when I tried to download it came back with an error saying there was a problem. My immediate thought was that I had be swizzed.

HOWEVER, I later received an email from the service saying there had indeed been a problem and that all had been resolved.

In the meantime I had found your blog while I was looking to see if anyone else was sharing my experiences.

So I logged back in and true to their word the service was up and running so I was happy.

About the service. I am a club DJ and am alway on the look out for the latest tunes and i have been absolutely blown away by what I have found on this site.

Tunes that I can't buy anywhere online or sometimes find in the shops. Even things which to my knowledge are only knocking around on vinyl. This sounds like a blatant advert (which it most definitely is not) but last night I was like a kid in candy shop and managed to find about 85% of all the sought after tracks I have been looking for over the last month.

The search facility is pretty crappy and browsing is not really much of an option. If you know the artists you are looking for, or the exact name of the track you want then this site is great.

They also have a few lists of the latest UK and US charts etc but these don't really demonstrate the depth of what the site seems to have available.

I did find a couple of links which seemed not to work and the interface can get a bit hung up 'encoding' these files but this happened twice out of about 15 downloads.

The listening interface works well and they have adopted a fast-forwarding approach in the sample which will play about 10 seconds fast forward a bit, play some more and so on. This is very helpful, I am always a bit frustrated when the 30 second sample you get on some other site seems to miss out the best or worst parts of the music.

So over all: not that user friendly, found downloads a bit slow, they seem to max out at about 50kbps on my system. I am used to 100-200kbps on some other sites.

This site is all about its content and having used a lot of the mp3 sites I am very happy to have found this one which seems to cater for my particular (non mainstream) tastes really rather well.

Beatles Pick AllofMp3.com over iTunes (Satire)

"It's like the President's daughter announcing she will marry Osama Bin Laden." Says RIAA lawyer Hugh Billings. "Allofmp3.com is an outlaw organization with links to organized crime and possible terrorist groups. More importantly, Allofmp3.com doesn't pay any royalties to RIAA members for the use of their copyright materials. Giving Allofmp3.com control of the must lucrative music franchise in history is a mistake, a very big mistake."
Link

Webmoney, more available to Europeans

I have never used WebMoney, but they seem to be a good option for people that don't want to pay with a credit card . If you've used them, please comment.

I received this email about WebMoney.
"My name is Natalia, I’m PR-manager in Web Money Transfer. We find your lens about Russian mp3 sites (http://www.squidoo.com/russianmp3sites/). You see that more of them accepting WebMoney as payment tool. And now our system became more available to europeans: they can top-up WM account using paysafesard (www.paysafecard.com) or UKash (www.ukash.com) prepaid cards in almost all European countries.
So now one can fast add funds to the WM-purse in euro and buy music without complicated identification and sharing the credit card details."

General details on company from wikipedia:
"WebMoney is an electronic money and online payment system (transactions are conducted through WebMoney Transfer). It was founded in 1998 in Russia, and originally targeted mainly Russian clients, but is now used world-wide. The company claims to have more than 2 million users.
Clients can use the system through downloaded software called "WM Keeper" or through a limited web client called "WM Keeper light". Signing up and receiving webmoney (known as "WM units") from other users is free; sending WM units to other accounts incurs a fee of 0.8%. Funds can be deposited into or withdrawn from webmoney accounts by money order, wire transfer, by conversion from other electronic currencies, or by cash transactions at authorized exchange offices; all of these incur various fees. It is also possible to purchase WM cards for $10-$100 in order to fund an account.
WebMoney transactions are safe because they do not require a credit card or bank account and immune against certain scams because they are final and cannot be retracted; this is similar to e-gold and cash and unlike credit card transactions and PayPal. It is therefore not possible to buy WM units online with a mere credit card or a paypal account.
Every account, known as a "purse", is run in US Dollar-equivalents (WMZ), ruble-equivalents (WMR), euro-equivalents (WME) or hryvnia-equivalents (WMU). Accounts are identified by strings called WM-IDs; account holders can remain completely anonymous towards each other.
WebMoney incorporates an instant messaging system as well as a way to send out bills and to extend credit. It is also possible to protect a payment with a password; the payment is withdrawn from the payer's account and added to the payee's account, but cannot be redeemed unless the password is known. The payer will typically provide the password once the promised goods have been delivered. Some operations require a higher level of user authentication known as a "WM passport" which a user can obtain from authorized parties."