AllofMP3 principal acquitted

Stephen Withers
Friday, 17 August 2007 03:20

Business IT - Technology

Denis Kvasov, the head of the company behind Russian music download site AllofMP3.com, has been acquitted by a Moscow district court in a copyright infringement case.

AllofMP3 sold music at very low prices. While critics asserted it was breaching copyright, the company had a licensing agreement with ROMS, the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society.

According to The Moscow Times, ROMS chief Oleg Nezus pointed to a 2004 ruling that AllofMP3.com's activities were legal. "No court has overruled the Moscow Arbitration Court decision, and as long as it stands, AllofMP3.com is legal in Russia," he said.

The same report quoted Konstantin Zemchenkov, director of Russian Anti-piracy Organization as saying "I can say unequivocally that the activities of sites like AllofMP3.com are illegal in Russia, because our country has signed on to many international conventions that prohibit them."

AllofMP3.com closed earlier this year after credit card companies stopped processing its transactions. Other sites such as mp3sparks.com have taken its place.

According to wire reports, judge Yekaterina Sharapova said the prosecution did a sloppy job and failed to persuasive evidence of Kvasov's involvement in copyright law infringements.

That would appear to leave open the question of whether the company was acting legally or not, but new laws coming into effect in 2008 appear to outlaw such activities.