Ben Reid
5 Oct 2006 14:59
The United States is continuing to mount the pressure on Russia to take down the controversial AllofMP3.com website, warning the nation that a possible World Trade Organization (WTO) entry is in jeopardy if action isn't taken soon.
"I have a hard time imagining Russia becoming a member of the WTO and having a Web site like that up and running that is so clearly a violation of everyone's intellectual property rights," said Susan Schwab, a U.S. Trade Representative.
For those of you that aren't aware, AllofMP3.com is a Russian-based digital music download service which offers consumers DRM-free music at extremely low prices. An album download will typically cost around £0.75 (about $1.40) from AllofMP3, which prices its downloads by file size rather than a price-per-song / subscription service offered by other online download services.
However, the legality of the site has come into question many times, and it's been alleged that it does not pay any royalties to artists which, if true, would make AllofMP3 an illegal operation.
The US and Russia are currently trying to kickstart negotiations with view to an agreement on Moscow's 13-year-old bid to join the WTO. Initial talks collapsed back in July, and one of the reasons cited was that Russia wasn't being strict enough to stop piracy and counterfeiting of American goods.
"The dialogue is continuing. We're making progress slowly but steadily and we'll see if we can get there," Schwab said. "A WTO accession agreement with Russia is a high priority. There's no guarantee that we'll get it done."
Source:
Reuters via Yahoo! News