Quote:
|
Originally Posted by andymt
yeh its back to itunes then cuz i dont wanna download illegally
|
Good on you! It's nice to hear someone say this for a change.
What happens with allofMP3 is that they are collecting your money and are allowed to operate under an extremely out-of-date loophole in the Russian copyright laws.
However, copyright exists in both recordings (the actual track) and in the writing (the words and tune) and only one of these (under this loophole) permits allofMP3 to put original artist recordings online. The other, in true Russian quango style, refuses to talk to, well, anyone really - so they have NOT granted any license to anyone for the composition rights be places online. However, it could possibly be argued that allofMp3 offered to pay the authors via this body, but as the body won't talk to anyone they cannot do so. So, to me, it's unclear whether allofMP3 OPERATES illegally.
If you want to talk about morals, then they are acting immorally - they have exploited a loophole that allows them to pay virtually nothing to the record labels and absolutely nothing to the composers and publishers - which, if everyone only used allofMP3 to get all of their music, would result in virtuallyu no music being made available commercially.
However, under UK and EU copyright laws, to me again, it is fairly clear that it is unlawful to USE allofmp3. Recently the BPI used the copyright laws to stop some companies supplying legitimate product sourced in Asia and the US to any EU customer. In addition, the legal case between Levis and Tesco found that tesco were not allowed to source grey market product and sell in the EU, as this was a breach of copyright.
Therefore, by downloading music from allofMP3 you are in breach of copyright, by personally sourcing grey market copyrighted product from outside of the EU - which could (although it's unlikely) leave you open to future prosecuction by the BPI.
Copyright is a complex beastie!