Russian download site shut down
The controversial Russian music download site allofmp3.com has closed. — The service, which sold songs at a fraction of the cost of other sites, claimed to be the second biggest seller of music downloads after iTunes. — It was the subject …
Context & Ripple Effects
AllofMP3.com spent years selling major-label repertoire at a fraction of iTunes' prices under a licensing scheme Western rights bodies never accepted, and by its own claim had grown into the second-biggest download retailer after iTunes. The closure follows the Russian government's move to shut the service down, reported across Times of London and TorrentFreak on 2007-07-02.
The timing lands weeks after IFPI's June accounting of the industry's problems, which framed unlicensed digital sales as a central drag on recorded music. Ars Technica's same-day read, that the site is down but not out, captures the open question: whether a state-enforced shutdown ends the business or just pauses it.
First-order effects
- Russian and international customers who relied on allofmp3.com for cut-price downloads immediately lose the cheapest mainstream outlet, with paid balances and purchased libraries stranded on a dark domain.
- The IFPI and the major labels get the enforcement outcome they had lobbied for, removing the most visible example of large-scale unlicensed commercial downloading.
Second-order effects
- Traffic and payment flows will seek substitutes — mirror domains, clones and rival grey-market sellers — so Ars Technica's 'down, but not out' framing points at rebranding rather than exit as the likely response.
- Legitimate Russian download services, long undercut on price by allofmp3.com's fraction-of-market rates, gain room to compete on legal catalogues once the price floor normalizes.
Third-order effects
- If governments rather than courts become the instrument for closing unlicensed retailers, the pattern pushes grey-market operators toward jurisdiction-hopping and rapid rebranding — a whack-a-mole structure where demand persists even as each branded site falls.
- For rights holders, a successful state takedown becomes a template for export-pressure enforcement against piracy-hosting countries generally, raising copyright compliance as a bilateral trade and diplomatic issue.
The trend: Digital music piracy enforcement is shifting from lawsuits against individuals to state-level shutdowns of commercial grey-market retailers, which displace demand into clones faster than they eliminate it.