The Recording Industry Association Of America has announced that is has dropped its lawsuit against AllofMP3.com, mainly because the rogue Russian download platform is no longer operational, which seems like a good reason to me.
Confirming they were dropping their action, they told Bloomberg that they considered their AllofMP3.com action had been a "successful anti-piracy initiative", given that the site closed down last summer. Though, as previously reported, despite the lawsuits and successful lobbying on a political level to persuade the Russian authorities to take action against AllofMP3.com, which sold major label music at cut price rates in DRM-free formats, in the end it was a decision by the major credit card firms to no longer accept payments that kicked off the beginning of the end for the service.
Of course, soon after AllofMP3.com closed, a new and similar service called MP3Sparks launched which, while not officially linked to the former in a corporate sense, allowed users to use their AllofMP3 login and passwords, so is essentially a new version of the same thing. The RIAA say they are aware of MP3Sparks.com, but are confident the Russian authorities will act to bring them in line with international copyright laws, or close them down. RIAA VP International Affairs Neil Turkewitz said: "Hopefully, the Russian government will do what they need to do".