Allofmp3.com

it's up to $.02/MB as of a couple days ago

from allofmp3's legal info...
"Users are responsible for any usage and distribution of all materials received from AllOFMP3.com. This responsibility depends on the local legislation of each user's country of residence. AllOFMP3.com's Administration does not keep up with the laws of different countries and is not responsible the actions of non-Russian users"

Just because it's available dosn't mean it's legal... I am not saying it isn't legal but it looks sketchy... I'd love to buy a cd for that cheep though

I decided to try allofmp3... but not do any serious downloading.
Creating my account was easy enough. It says the paypal feature is tempraly unavailable, but you can still use it. Just buy a XROST card and that uses paypall... easy enough.

So far I have downloaded two albums... one was $1.05 and another was $.85. It is fairly easy to pick the albums and select the size of file you want to download in but the auctuall downloading speeds are slow.

Because I don't think this site is very legal I'm not going to do lots with it. I deposited $10 and i won't do much more.

Russia when it was communistic obtained the automatic rights to any music as long they would pay a percentage of the money to the labels. This was done as it is better to get a bit of cash then nothing as Russia would do anything they wanted. I am not sure when the contract will expire.

Just move to Russia, you win twice then.
1. It would all be legal.
2. You'd probably become a millionare due to the exchange rate, =D

Originally posted by andkatiesays
and really fast downloads, thanks for posting this!!
fast downloads?? mine havn't been so fast... about 50kb per second.... is that your fast. if not how do you get faster downloads? I have broadband internet so it's not my internet.

I just got a great idea!!!
Why not have someone email the RIAA? They might say it's illegal (might lie) but you never know... it could be legal.

Originally posted by bingbongbang
how do you signup it is all in russian?

in the top left hand corner of the page click on the english button

ohh well i signed up $10 of credit my mum did not mind much and i live in AUS where copyright stuff is not to bad :) worth a try

well its monday night 12-27 and there still has been no reply...

could allofmp3.com be leagal and the RIAA just dosn't want to admit it??
maybe, maybe not
maybe they just have really slow service

I e-mailed the BPI about this last night. I'll post the reply when I get it for all the Brits here

? ? ? CHEAP
ME ? ?

Here is an interview with the guy who created allofmp3.com on technewsworld:

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/34512.html

His dodging the questions about legality, and his insistence that they are primarily catering to Russian users (the english page is only available because of Russian-language encoding problems... yeah right :rolleyes: ) would lead me to believe that they are well aware that the music purchased through their site here in the good old U.S. of A should not be considered legal. Might as well save the $0.65 per album and get your music off eMule or the like (though it might be considered worth it just for the ability to customize encoder options and such).

Originally posted by grizz311
He is right... I was there for summer vacation... and if you are a computer person you should move there... why? heres why..

1. Stores on the street who sell music and games for like 5 bucks...
2.Not illegal to use pirated/cracked version games.
3. If you have a PAL xbox they sell all the xbox games for 5 dollars..
4.if u find a small alleyway store (common) they sell every disc for about 2 dollars...(music, games, software)
5.by software i mean like: Adobe photoshop cs, macromedia flash mx pro 2004, etc.

If i had a choice iw ould definitly live in russia.

did you buy anything to take back?? Adobe for $2... cheep.

Stupid site wont take my credit card!:mad:

Hi There,

I have registered to use this site and have recieved my free traffic allowance for downloading but can anyone offer any advice as to the best/most cost effective way of adding further funds to your acct as I gather payments are to be made in USD$ ?

all of my allofmp3 files work fine... 320k mp3s

allofmp3.com is perfectly legal - but only if your local laws say it is. It is legal in Russia, where it is hosted, and basically says: "It may not be legal where you live - don't use it if it's not". So it's probably illegal in America, if RIAA has it's say in the matter.

Originally posted by kidmd
Under current US law, downloads from allofmp3 are considered imports. It is illegal to import for commercial purposes, but you con import all you want for your personal use.
This is presently a legal gray area at best, however. Currently law probably makes it legal until such time as a precedent case comes up to challenge it, at which point the precedent will have been established.

Firstly, not everything is legal to import in a given country, even for personal use. Granted this would come under "import" laws as opposed to copyright laws per se, but it depends on whether copyrighted music can be legally imported or not.

Further, the lack of delivery of "physical" product is another significant consideration here. If you order a physical CD from a Russian web-site, then you will have that CD shipped to you, and it will pass through customs (and most likely be taxed and have import duties applied in the process). Downloaded music effectively bypasses this, as there is no physical product. The duties applied in this case would take into consideration the point of manufacture of the physical product as well as the origin of the intellectual property, and the availability of that material in your own country.

Again, this would probably all come under import law, and I think the concept of downloading digital content across international borders is one of these areas that hasn't been fully explored within the legal landscape. Most of the main member nations of the WTO have been unable to reach a reasonable agreement up until now on how to even handle the concept of downloads.

As a rule, the U.S. has opposed such considerations as applying tariffs to digital content, even supporting a 1999 moratorium on this put in place by the WTO. However, this was back when the U.S. was in the position of expecting to be the primary distributor of electronic content (which in truth, they still are). Naturally, the seller and distributor will always oppose tariffs as it reduces their market. Europe was of course on the other side of that particular fence, probably for the same reasons.

However, keep in mind that most of the focus of the WTO and WIPO in these areas is concerned with intellectual property that originates in another country. The current policies and practices would very quickly preclude charging any kind of duties or tarriffs on music created by Russian artists, in this case, as the WIPO's standards are such that both foreign and domestic artists must be treated with equal footing. However, in this case we're talking about intellectual property that in many cases originated within the U.S. that is being re-imported into the U.S.

Bottom line is that I don't think the RIAA gestapo will be banging down your door anytime soon for downloading from allofmp3.com, since any restrictions here probably aren't under their jurisdiction. However, you can be sure that their battalion of lawyers are currently readying some sort of challenge to its legality, however. Only time will tell what side of the fence that one ends up on.

well, if they don't respond to emails, call them directly:

202-775-0101

heh, well I was hoping some other ninny would volunteer. If I do call them I will post any info. If anyone else calls, do the same.

So "mp3" is the best format to use (versus wma, ogg, etc.)? Thanks.

someone call them

since the paypal feature on allofmp3.com is unavailable and I dont want to use my credit card on that site would anyone be willing be buy me a gift card for $10? I would pay you $12 in advance through paypal. It would be a huge favor for me. PM me or email at nonameroosevelt@hotmail.com

thanks alot

Originally posted by nonameroosevelt
since the paypal feature on allofmp3.com is unavailable and I dont want to use my credit card on that site would anyone be willing be buy me a gift card for $10? I would pay you $12 in advance through paypal. It would be a huge favor for me. PM me or email at nonameroosevelt@hotmail.com

thanks alot

Use the XROST Prepaid iCard service to pay for your music. This uses paypal. To sign up you give your first name, last name, email, and password. giving your name is optional too!

Once you have an account you buy an iCard Ranging from $10-100. When you click on an ammount it will take you to paypal. Log in and complete the transaction. When you have payed for your iCard it appears in the Orders section of your account on the XROST website.

They give you a "PIN code" and a "Claim ID" Go to www.allofmp3.com, sign in, go to My Balance, New Payment, and click on the XROST logo. allofmp3 will ask you to enter the PIN code and Claim ID and click process. The money will be added to your account!!!!

XROST does work! I have used this website myself. You are paying a "Verified Business Member (1568)" (paypal's user status).

FYI: The paypal feature has been down for a while. It probably won't come up anytime soon (if ever). If you want to use allofmp3 and use paypal this is the way to go.

Actually, tat2phreak, it lies deeper than that apparently. There's some issue paypal has that the Russian customer can't fix or something along those lines. They wouldn't go into detail, but they were pretty clear it's not something they can just reactivate.

nonameroosevelt, I did get your PM, I was waiting for a friend to come and buy me a gift certificate so that I can see how much personal information is given to the recipient of the gift. When I find that out, I may do it for you.

xrost almost seems to good to be true. no fines and really fast. where do they get their money? with paypal's fines it seems like they would be losing money. does anyone know?

http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3info.htm

found that site when doing more research on the legality of allofmp3... basically, if you aren't downloading from there to re-distribute... it's legal. at least until the RIAA mafia pulls the strigs to make that illegal too...

Ok, I've dl'ed about 600 songs, from Allofmp3.com all excellent quality, for a total of $55!

But, does anyone know of another site that is similar! Looking for a few other albums that allofmp3 dont have yet?

zsmith66 is right. I still buy CDs myself....lately itunes is #### in my book. Downloading errors and all.

So are people who were listed in the article in some sort of danger of getting into trouble?

Thank god! I wrote an e-mail to this guy telling him I wanted out if the article was anything other than a would-be review.
It totally worried me. I was about to make one of those late night calls to my attorney to ask him what to do. heh

an FYI

for those interested in reading the WSJ article on allofmp3 and other russian downloading sites but arn't members of wall street journal online (like myself), the article can be found for free today (1-25) under the free articles section.

www.wsj.com
free section is on the right column under the "Todays Most Popular" section

First, I am not a lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt. It appears international copyright and Russian law applies in this case, not US law. However, the US Constitution prohibits laws being applied retroactively (Congress shall make no law ex post facto). Basically, the federal or state governments cannot suddently declare a specific act illegal and then sue or prosecute someone who did such an act prior to the law being enacted. However, when it comes to copyright law, those laws are already on the books. So a court could determine that, based on the current law, activity A is illegal, but they still couldn't sue or prosecute someone who did activity A before the court ruling. If you continue to do it, then they could prosecute.

Originally posted by wolfpacker
dmacnut, not true. I stand corrected. However, when I said they "can't go after you" I was generally referring to criminal penalties. If the Supreme Court rules that Kazaa and Grokster are illegal (currently pending case) someone who used the programs last year for a few months, and then stopped is less likely to be subject to criminal penalties than someone who has kept on using them. Civil penalties are an entirely different matter, where the burden of proof is less. The RIAA is going after active sharers, and threat of a lawsuit often leads people to settle. The cost of going to trial and losing is often far greater than the settlement would be, so people settle.

what about the people mentioned in the story? do you think they have more of a chance of legal action being taken against them?

the one I read DID have people mentioned by name...

what article were you reading? the wsj article didn't mention names.

is your name mentioned?

I dont see any article!

no, they are not identified as loungers, but my question was more general... like would the RIAA gestapo use those names to track people down...

It's probably no more legal in the US than downloading illegally.

I wouldn't waste my money, unless it eases your conscience to pay even a very small amount.

yeh its does kind of ease my conscious lol. :D

but what do u mean u wouldnt waste ur money? do u get ur music free from somwhere?

Originally posted by non_zero
Well, you pay for music so that you legally own that music. Wouldn't it be a waste of money to pay for it and it still be illegal in our country?

not totally, your paying for organized files that are virus free and are easy to download the right file

Originally posted by bighusker
Allofmp3 has a lot of older music in *very* high quality that is impossible to find on most peer-to-peer networks. Plus they give you the choice of which encoder is used and which format. I know it's probably illegal...I honestly couldn't care less.

If it's illegal anyways (not illegal for me..) I would rather use other sources, which I can't speak of here, to get the same music with very high quality, for free.

-Dan

Originally posted by Doug Gilmour
If it's illegal anyways (not illegal for me..) I would rather use other sources, which I can't speak of here, to get the same music with very high quality, for free.

-Dan

The problem is that you can't find a lot of older songs in "high quality" on p2p networks. And when I say old, I mean like 90's or early 2000 stuff...Even the high-bitrate ones often sound like crap because they were encoded with old versions of Blade or Xing or other inferior encoders a few years ago.

For a few bands (40 Below Summer, E-Town Concrete, Full Devil Jacket), I simply bought their used CDs off amazon for about $.50. But for others, I just made use of allofmp3. I also used them to get an mp3 rip of a CD that I lost...I know it's around my house somewhere but I can't find it to rip it...I might as well get lame encodes of it because that's how I'd do it if I could ever find the damn CD... It'd be time consuming if I was just searching and praying that I'd find lame rips in alt-standard preset mode with Ares and Limewire.

Most of my "illegal" downloading does take place on the "other sources." But allofmp3 is kind of a last resort if I can't find a high-quality copy on p2p.

i was just curious. i have been trying to update money on my account and it says paypal is down.would you use just ur credit card or should i wait for paypal?

Yes, you could email them but that may also tip them off about the service

I did the Delete Account thing, might not do any good but oh well!:confused:

Well, Lets hope!, I got most every thing I wanted, now I'll just have to resort to borrowing friends CDs or taking the portable Hard Drive to friends and swap the tunes!

its now march 2nd, can you still use paypal?

is it practically the same thing? and is it safe?