AllofMP3.com sued by major US labels
updated 09:15 am EST, Thu December 21, 2006
AllofMP3.com Sued
Controversial online music store AllofMP3.com has been sued by a group of key US music labels, according to the BBC. A collective suit has been filed by Arista Records, Capitol, UMG, and Warner in New York, alleging that the Russian site has been selling artists' songs without permission.
"The defendant's entire business... amounts to nothing more than a massive infringement of plaintiffs' exclusive rights under the Copyright Act and New York law," the labels claim.
The online store has already flatly refused the claim, saying that it operates fully within Russian law, paying royalties to the local licensing agency Roms. However, while Roms itself says it operates within the law, it freely admits that much of its music has been obtained without first speaking to the artists or their labels. AllofMP3 has already been placed under indirect pressure to shut down after both MasterCard and Visa began denying payments to the site, which charges as little as $1 for an entire album.
