Russian music website AllofMP3.com, which has angered Western record labels because of its cut price downloads, continues to grow, now launching an offshoot service for the Czechoslovakian market.
As previously reported, AllofMP3.com offers music at considerably cheaper rates than its Western rivals, recently adopting a very different pricing structure where music is sold at a rate per MB, meaning the cost of a track or album depends on its length and the quality of the music file being sold. That said, the going rate is just 2 cents a MB so even long albums sold at a high quality would seem cheap compared to Western prices - Coldplay's 'X&Y', for example, can be downloaded for $1.17.
AllofMP3 claim to be a legitimate company operating within Russian copyright laws and royalty systems. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry is not convinced, but has found little support within the Russian government or Moscow courts to support their legal case against the download firm.
It remains to be seen if AllofMP3's expansion into the European Union will offer the IFPI a new legal route to tackle the company. The trade organisation's lawyers will certainly hope so because as the cut price download platform moves West its negative impact on the digital music space can only increase.