The owner of the Russian music-sales Internet service AllOfMP3 has been acquitted of charges of copyright infringement. AllOfMP3 is the most successful commercial Internet music service to date, and the company paid royalties to Russia's collecting society — their equivalent of ASCAP or BMI, just as American radio stations and live performance venues do.
But the American record labels didn't like AllOfMP3's business practices — they sold DRM-free MP3s at low cost — and used the World Trade Organization and the US Trade Representative to get AllOfMP3 shut down (killing this company was even a condition of the recent Russia-US trade agreement, which also included a promise to license and inspect presses, something that the US fought a bloody revolutionary war to stop back in 1776).
Now a court has heard the case against AllOfMP3 and decided that they weren't breaking Russian law after all. The site has already been shut down, though the founders have created a successor already and transferred AllOfMP3 accounts to it.
A Russian court found the former boss of music download Web site www.allofmp3.com not guilty of breaching copyright on Wednesday in a case considered a crucial test of Russia's commitment to fighting piracy…
"The prosecution did not succeed in presenting persuasive evidence of his involvement in infringing copyright law," said judge Yekaterina Sharapova.
See also:
US Trade Representative bends Russia over on copyright
Allofmp3.com finally shut down by Russian authorities
(Thanks, Mark!)
