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UK police have arrested a 25-year-old for selling vouchers in Europe for use with AllofMP3.com. The recording industry body of the UK, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), announced the arrest today, saying that the man took payments from European customers and transferred them to offshore Russian accounts. He allegedly sold the £10 vouchers on eBay and through AllofMP3vouchers.co.uk.
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A little bit of a background on AllofMP3.com:
* It's a Russian website that sells un-DRM'd songs at lower prices than other websites
* It has obtained a license from the Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems (ROMS - a body designated by Russian law for collecting and distributing statutory copyright royalty payments from radio stations and internet download sites in Russia). It is unknown how ROMS distributes royalties back to music labels/artists
* From the AllofMP3.com website's FAQ - We pay Russian Licensing Societies 15% for all music. The Russian Licensing Societies will in turn pay the copyright owners, not necessarily the artists. Despite no legal requirement to do so, we are currently considering paying original performing artists 5%, regardless of who owns the copyright to the underlying work.
* Major record labels do not recognise ROMS and have sued AllofMP3.com for $US 1.65 trillion (that's right, trillion!), which is higher than Russian's entire GDP
* The US Government has threatened Russian's entry into the WTO if they do not stop AllofMP3.com
* Most major credit card companies have stopped processing payments from AllofMP3.comLast edited by admin; 22 May 2007, 01:49 PM.
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