Well, in our War & Peace of a Review Of The Music Year just before Christmas (which you can still check on the CMU Music Network website, by the way) we said that rogue Russian download site AllofMP3.com wasn't likely to go quietly, despite the various legal and commercial moves being made in a bid to put it out of business. And I think we were right.
The download platform has responded to the latest legal challenge made against it, by the good old Recording Industry Association Of America, which launched litigation against AllofMP3.com in the New York courts just before Christmas.
As previously reported, the RIAA and most of its counterparts around the world have long accused AllofMP3.com of violating major record companies' copyrights by selling mainstream music at super-low prices while claiming to be a legitimate service. The download company claim they are operating legally within Russian copyright laws, but the RIAA et al aren't convinced that is so and, even it is, say that AllofMP3.com is liable for copyright violations anyway because they sell downloads to customers in countries other than Russia, where it definitely is not operating legally.
The pressure started to build against AllofMP3.com in the latter part of 2006 after US trade officials told Russia it had to close copyright law loopholes employed by the download firm if the country was to be allowed into the World Trade Organisation, while the main credit card firms announced they would no longer accept transactions from the company because of copyright violation concerns. Those factors mean that AllofMP3.com's non-Russian customer base has dropped significantly, but the service is still live and, anyway, organisations like the RIAA are now looking for compensation for the estimated 11 million songs sold by the service without licence (according to the industry association, anyway) to date.
However, AllofMP3.com has dismissed the RIAA's action, disputing that the New York courts have any jurisdiction over them, and again stressing that the company is operating within Russian laws. A statement from parent company Media Services told reporters last week: "AllofMP3 understands that several US record label companies filed a lawsuit against Media Services in New York. This suit is unjustified as AllofMP3 does not operate in New York. Certainly the labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3 operates legally in Russia. In the mean time, AllofMP3 plans to continue to operate legally and comply with all Russian laws". Of course that statement ignores what is presumably key to this case - AllofMP3.com's failure to block access to the service to non-Russian customers. Whether the New York courts would rule that such a failure constituted liability for violation, whether they would award compensation in hindsight for such violation, and whether they could do anything to enforce any ruling against the Russian firm, all remains to be seen.
Meantime, the amusing bit of the RIAA litigation is that their legal documentation suggests compensation of $150,000 per copyright violation, which as website After Dawn points out, given that there have been an alleged 11 million violations would mean a compensation payment of $1.65 trillion, just under the Gross Domestic Product for the UK in 2005! I'm guessing the RIAA won't be getting that.