The International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry has criticised the decision of a Moscow court, who threw out a case against the former head of controversial Russian downloading service allofmp3.com.
The Moscow court rejected allegations by the major record companies that allofmp3.com, its owners Mediaservices and its former chief Denis Kvasov, were all guilty of selling their music without permission. As previously reported, throughout the major label's legal and PR assault on allofmp3.com, which sold major label music at cut price rates, and without DRM, the rogue download service has claimed it was operating within Russian copyright law, even when selling music to customers outside Russia.
Confirming and commenting on the ruling, IFPI VP Litigation Jo Oliver said yesterday: "We are extremely disappointed that the court failed to convict Denis Kvasov today and expect the prosecutor to appeal. MediaServices operates in clear violation of Russia's law and we expect this unfortunate decision will soon be reversed. This ruling in no way affects the illegality of allofmp3.com and similar services that reproduce and make available music without the consent of the artists, composers and record producers that created it".
Oliver added that Kvasov mainly got off in this case because a loophole in Russian copyright law, which could be argued to allow aspects of the Allofmp3.com service to operate legally, was only closed off in September 2006, nine months after the former chief had left the company. But Oliver says that the judge ignored the fact that other Allofmp3.com practices, in particular reproducing music without permission, was illegal even when Kvasov was still running the download firm.