Newly confident from having won its copyright court case against the international music industry, Moscow-based AllofMP3.com has vowed to relaunch. A statement on its blog, post-dated to Friday, August 31, says: “The service will be resumed in the foreseeable future. We are doing our best at the moment to ensure that all our users can use their accounts, top up balance and order music.” Record labels took parent MediaServices to court Russia but the owner got off a fortnight ago when a judge ruled AllofMP3.com was not illegal because it is licensed to sell music by Russia’s ROMS collection society. The problem is, ROMS is not mandated by the music business’ favored international copyright umbrella, CISAC.
AllofMP3.com had drawn criticism from labels for selling digital music tracks to web users at knock-down Russian prices. Even while AllofMP3.com was on hiatus, its owners continued to operate a counterpart site, MP3Sparks.com, that did the same job. In a statement emailed from its legal adviser Tim Smith, the London-based International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which had led the opposition, told paidContent.org the acquittal of the site’s owner had no impact on the legality of AllofMP3.com and, if it restarts, it would continue to be breaking Russian and international copyright laws because it has no right to sell the music.