Russia shuts down Allofmp3.com
The music download website whose activities threatened to scupper Russia's entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has been shut down. — The site, Allofmp3.com, was quietly closed as the Kremlin sought to end criticism from the United States …
Context & Ripple Effects
Allofmp3.com had become the emblem of Russia's copyright-enforcement gap: a Moscow-based site selling major-label music at cut-rate prices without licenses from those labels, and the single most-cited irritant in Washington's objections to Russian trade policy. As of this morning the site is offline, and the Times reports the closure came quietly, from the Kremlin's direction rather than through a court ruling against the operators.
The speed and breadth of pickup — Techdirt, TorrentFreak and the Moscow Times' own account within hours — reflects how closely the site's fate was tied to Russia's WTO accession bid, which US negotiators had linked directly to intellectual-property enforcement.
First-order effects
- Allofmp3.com's customers lose access to its unlicensed catalogue overnight, with no notice or refund mechanism reported.
- The Kremlin removes the highest-profile named grievance in US–Russia trade talks, clearing one obstacle ahead of WTO accession negotiations.
Second-order effects
- US trade negotiators gain a headline concession but face the harder question of whether the operators simply reappear under another domain — an administrative shutdown does not itself create a licensed Russian download market.
- Western labels and the RIAA's lobbying effort gets proof that trade pressure can move the Kremlin where years of infringement suits had not, likely sharpening the enforcement conditions attached to accession.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, copyright enforcement becomes diplomatic currency: states shut piracy sites not to satisfy domestic law but to clear bilateral trade obstacles, decoupling takedowns from judicial process.
- For global download services, the episode signals that operating unlicensed catalogues inside accession-hungry jurisdictions carries state-level political risk that no offshore incorporation shields against.
The trend: Copyright enforcement is increasingly traded as diplomatic currency, with governments closing piracy sites to clear trade-obstacle lists rather than through courts acting for rights holders.