Posted by Technobarbarian on 11/27/05 06:42

<rossbyrd@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1133062865.177388.191150@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> If you're willing to pay a small amount, there are several online
> Russian music stores (in English as well as Russian) that offer songs
> for about $.10 (and less in some cases). A loophole in Russian
> copyright law and American importation law makes it legal.

They are in a legal gray area in Russia, at best. They're clearly
illegal in the US and if you read their disclaimers carefully you'll see
where they admit they are not illegal everywhere and attempt to pass legal
responsibility to the user.

The stores
> give like 15% of their total (not net) annual income to ROMS, the
> Russian licensing agency.

Don't know where you get your numbers, but according to the Russian
licensing agency allofmp3 made token payments for awhile and have stopped
doing even that.

Some consider it illegal, but the RIAA has
> not and does not plan to pursue attacking these sites.

Attempts have been made to shut down some of these sites, including
allof mp3, most likely due to RIAA pressure.

They would much
> rather attack people that pay nothing for music than those who pay
> something for it.

They would much rather shut down these sites. As this isn't likely at
the moment they seem to be avoiding publizing these sites as much as
possile.

It is a viable alternative; but, your information is badly out of whack
with reality.

TB

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