Rogue Russian download platform allofmp3.com has hit back at US Trade Representative Susan Schwab after she last week implied that she expected Russian authorities to crack down on the digital music site ahead of any moves to make Russia a member of the World Trade Organisation.
As you all know (I mean, we've told you often enough), allofmp3.com offers major label music at a fraction of the price charged elsewhere. The site's owners claim it is a legal operation, operating under legitimate Russian licences. Record label trade bodies in the West, however, question that legitimacy, while stressing that even if the service is legally operating in Russia, it is not legally operating elsewhere in the world where its low-cost approach has proved popular with consumers.
While those trade bodies consider what legal action it can take against allofmp3.com, everyone recognises a quicker solution would be for Russian authorities to act on their behalf, but they have so far been reluctant to take action. But specifically including allofmp3.com in ongoing talks between the US and Russia regarding the latter's entry into the WTO might persuade those authorities that they should be controlling the download company's operations in some way.
But Ilya Levitov, speaking for the download site's owner, MediaServices, again stressed this week that the company was acting completely legally. He told reporters: "We're totally in compliance with Russian law. It's a Russian company owned by Russian people. It's a Russian business. Anyone outside Russia who uses the store is warned that they should check local laws before buying and downloading music."
Of course Schwab, and the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry, hope to persuade the Russians to change their copyright laws, so that MediaServices can no longer claim to be operating legitimately. Whether allofmp3's owners believe such legal changes will actually come about is unclear, although publicly they don't seem too worried, joking that Schwab's efforts are in fact good for business because they provide so much free publicity. The AFP news agency quote another allofmp3 spokesman as saying: "Susan Schwab markets us so effectively - she could already be our press secretary".