Russians Just As Hesitant As The Rest Of The World About Paying For “Sam’s Town”

Perhaps you’ve heard about AllofMP3.com: It’s the Russian website that sells complete albums for as little as $2, and just happens to include such anti-download artists as Radiohead, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles (though, as our search-results reveal, they don’t support the local-music scene that much). As you can probably guess, it’s not exactly on the up-and-up, and it’s hurting the country’s chances of entering the World Trade Organization:

US negotiators have repeatedly returned to the issue of the worldwide music sales of allofmp3.com — protection of intellectual property being a major stumbling block in Russia’s negotiations to join the club.

US Trade Representative Susan Schwab has placed allofmp3.com on a “notorious markets” list and in a speech last month she accused Russian authorities of allowing the website to operate with impunity.

The Russian company–which is fighting a battle with long-time Idolator pals the IFPI–claims to be legitimate, but anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the digital-download market knows this is a total scam, and it’s only a matter of time until this thing is shut down. Or we get shot in St. Petersburg and dumped into the Neva. Whichever comes first. Russian music download site sends defiant message to US [AFP] AllofMP3.com