Just over a month after it looked to crumble under lawsuits and pressure, AllOfMP3’s website is back up today and promising a return of cheap music to its customers.

Earlier this month, AllOfMP3.com was acquitted by a Russian court of copyright violation charges. A statement on their site says they will be back soon:

The service will be resumed in the foreseeable future. We are doing our best at the moment to ensure that all our users can use their accounts, top up balance and order music.

Before being shutdown, AllOfMP3 sold copyrighted tunes at discounted prices to millions of users across the web. US and European recording industry associations argued that AllofMP3 was illegal because it operated without the permission of or payment to their members. AllofMP3 maintained that they were legal because they made payments to artists through a collections society, the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society (ROMS). Though some record labels do not accept those payments.

Then the big-name trio of EMI, NBC Universal, and Time Warner pressured the Russian courts into prosecuting the site’s onetime owner, Denis Kvasov. Not wanting to miss a chance to use something for political gain, The American government soon joined their crusade, calling for the site’s destruction and making the issue part of Russia’s entrance into the World Trade Organization. Fortunately a judge backed them up and acquitted their case.

AllOfMP3.com became so popular because it offered tracks cheaper than services like iTunes, sometimes by a factor of 10. For as little as $1, popular, recently-released albums were available. Hopefully, they will be able to provide that deep of discounts again.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 10:07 am under Uncategorized.

Read more entries by Ema Kwiatkowski.
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