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The Russian government has finally bitten the bullet, decided it wants to be in the World Trade Organisation more than it wants to be seen as a haven of music piracy, and closed Allofmp3.com.
The site, Allofmp3.com, was quietly closed as the Kremlin sought to end criticism from the United States that Russia was failing to clamp down on music and video piracy.
However, an alternative site run by the same Moscow company has already emerged. MediaServices says that mp3Sparks.com is legal under Russian law, using many of the same arguments advanced in support of allofmp3.com.
Somehow, I don’t really see this phoenix-from-the-ashes tactic fooling anyone in the record industry…
Anyway, I had a few dollars tucked away on Allofmp3 for a rainy day (I know, foolish when you consider the ongoing uncertainty over its future) so took a quick trip over to see what has changed.
I was amused to see that mp3Sparks.com is an exact replica of allofmp3.com – same catalogue, same basic design, same user IDs, it’s even transferred across every single allofmp3 user’s account!
My account, sadly, wasn’t working properly when I visited, so I’m not quite sure that my money is still mine, but when I emailed the mp3Sparks.com to check whether my password was still valid, a reply came back within minutes, which is a fairly positive sign.
Update 4 July: In the comments ?????? has pointed out that mp3Sparks has gone the way of its older brother and is, itself, no more. I guess someone sent the heavies round.
In America, this type of stunt goes on all the time. Many companies last about a year then you can find them again under new name. It takes time for government, to react so they have time to keep selling, then later close and reopen again to sell more.
Kyle
So were you able to recover your money and account through MP3Sparks? I am just wondering because I had to open a new account, not that it was a big deal because I only had 40 cents left in the AllOfMP3 account anyway. No big loss.
One thing people should be aware of is that MP3Sparks filters by IP address. Meaning anyone can open an account, but many people in western Europe and USA with IP addresses common to these countries will not be able fund their accounts- obviously not by MP3Sparks choice. You will start to go through the process but at some point you will be denied. There are ways around it though, but of course there always are 🙂
At least they haven’t shut down recordings.ru, a far superior site that has lots of underground/indie music.
mp3sparks didn’t last very long, did it?
mp3sparks didnt last very long, did it?
People claim they are still accessing MP3Sparks through MM. So I would not write them off just yet. This happened often with AllOfMP3 also, but it would come back anywhere between a few hours to once I remember it took 6 days.
As to recordings.ru-
“? ?????????, ??? ???? ?????????? ??-?? ???????”
Ah well, there are ways around that also….
You know what disturbs me about all of this is first, they are only hitting music, movies and other medias right now but what happens when they think they can get away with censoring outside [or even inside] news sources that do not agree with whatever agenda the govt is trying to push at the moment and second it just irks me that many of these medias such as the one Andy posted a link to keep reaching the wrong conclusions. Its not about the money for many of us. I also have a Napster membership that I had purchased a few songs from for 99cents each, but if AllOfMP3 opened back up tomorrow charging 2dollars a song they still would get the bulk of my business. But these dumb journalists just do not or perhaps even refuse to understand this, perhaps they are just lazy and want to just snatch the easiest excuse to get the story out or who knows?