Russia will not be accepted into the WTO until the authorities close AllofMP3.com

    The problem of musical piracy in Russia was seriously preoccupied by American officials. Officials from the US Trade Representation said that this issue could be crucial for Russia's admission to the World Trade Association.

    As you know, the United States makes billions in profits from the export of intangible assets - computer programs, technologies, video, audio products, etc. A well-designed patent system and international copyright conventions help America maintain the status quo.

    Computer piracy, illegal copying of films and music on a global scale are problems that can really threaten the foundations of the American economy, currency stability and the welfare of Americans. For example, Russian pirates, according to American experts, last year caused damage to the US economy in the amount of about $ 1.8 billion. It is not surprising that the requirements of the RIAA and other representatives of the “anti-piracy lobby” are secretly supported by the US authorities.

    Officials from the US Trade Representatives Office warn that due to the AllofMP3.com website , Russia may have problems joining the World Trade Association, where Russia has been striving to join for several years.

    AllofMP3.com is well known in Russia and abroad as a music store, where MP3s are sold about ten times cheaper than in Western stores such as iTunes ($ 0.1 instead of $ 0.99). Unlike Western stores, here the files downloaded from the site are not protected in any way from copying. Moreover, in the AllofMP3.com assortment there are even albums of groups for which the copyright holders did not give consent to distribution online, for example, The Beatles and Metallica.

    The creators of AllofMP3.com claim that they work on completely legal grounds, but for the whole world they remain pirates. “This is an absolutely unprecedented case where a pirate site has been working so openly for such a long time,” said Neil Turkewitz, executive vice president of RIAA.

    Interestingly, this “store” has already entered the world market. The site’s interface has been translated into English, so now it has more and more customers from among foreign users (although according to the conditions of the site’s work, responsibility is shifted to the music buyers themselves). Two years ago, American record companies for the first time expressed their concern about AllofMP3.com, and now their condition can be described as close to panic. They really cannot understand the inaction of the Russian authorities and demand that the Bush administration put pressure on Russian partners.

    Meanwhile, in the UK, AllofMP3.com came in second on the list of the most popular online music stores. According to Alexa, the Russian “store” has already entered the thousand of the most visited Internet websites. Statistics comScore estimates its monthly American audience at 345 thousand unique visitors in April 2006.

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