‘All of Your MP3 Are Belong to Rusks’

Faced with the prospect of losing its long-sought entry into the World Trade Organization, the Russian government has finally dropped the hammer on AllofMP3.com, a digital music storefront that peddles songs for pennies thanks to a loophole in Russian law. “Allofmp3.com violated copyright law in Russia and internationally by ripping off artists and creators, taking music that it had no right to reproduce and selling it worldwide,” said John Kennedy, head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. “If this is the end of AllofMP3.com, this is good news.”

Bad news then–this isn’t really the end of AllofMP3.com. Because while MediaServices, the company that ran the site, does seem to have scuppered it, it’s begun offering services identical to those of AllofMP3.com at mp3sparks.com.

And so the whack-a-mole game begins, this time with hammer and sickle.