For those of you who don't know, allofmp3.com was, for a couple of years, the second most popular music download site on the web (you can probably guess who had the #1 spot...). It had a unique business model, which earned it millions of fiercely loyal members. The vital ingredient was a massive selection of low priced, DRM free mp3s - however the unique selling point was that you could download music at the bitrate you wanted, paying proportionately depending on the file size (higher bitrate = larger file size = higher quality = higher cost). If you wanted music to play on your ipod, then 192kbps was fine - if you wanted to fill your house with rich CD quality sound, then 320kbps+ was there to be bought. The site was based in Russia, and albums could be downloaded (at lower bitrates) from around $2US - apparently the going rate for a CD in Russia. This was allofmp3's greatest advantage, and also the cause of it's downfall. The site, operating within the guidelines of Russian law, argued that it paid royalties from each sale to an independent collection agency (known as ROMS), which copyright holders could then approach to have their allocation of royalties from the sale of their music. Apparently no approach was ever made to ROMS by western agencies to recover royalties. Instead, with prices being severely undercut relative to US/European CD & download prices, the western agencies went on the offensive....... After sustained lobbying by the RIAA, allofmp3.com was cited by US Congress as a barrier to Russia joining the World Trade Organisation. Russia subsequently applied pressure on the site, and the site owners were taken to court. They were later found not guilty of any illegal activity by the Russian legal system. Let's pause for a minute at this point. Here we had a website offering the ultimate customer choice in music downloads. Music fans voted with their wallets and downloaded music (playable on any device) exactly as they wanted it. They weren't going to file sharing sites for free - they were paying! The big record companies couldn't be seen to condone this, as the allofmp3 pricing structure severely undercut their own. Applying to ROMS for royalties would be seen as acceptance of the situation - therefore the only option in the eyes of the RIAA was to destroy the site. As you would expect, there were many sites waiting in the wings to satisfy the expectation of allofmp3's customers for cheap, high quality downloads - and they appeared almost overnight. Some were very good, some were mediocre and some were very bad - however none of them had the overall experience and offer of allofmp3. This is understandable - a huge amount of resource was required to sample thousands of albums at different bitrates - sites weren't prepared to go to that level of effort if they could be closed down overnight. So where does that leave the avid mp3 downloader? The music industry have not attempted to replicate the offer of allofmp3 - this may be a face saving exercise. However it is suprising that some hard nosed record company exec has not decided to break ranks and offer downloads at even twice the price of allofmp3 - there would be a flood of buyers ready to purchase in the knowledge that they were getting music at the quality they wanted, at the price they wanted, that they could play on any device. Instead the 'official' sources have remained at their original position of pricing downloads at the equivalent of going out and buying the CD. And what of the 'allofmp3 replacements' that have sprung up over the last 18 months? Of those that are reliably available, none offer the option of different bitrates. However many offer music, over a wide variety of genres, at much lower prices than western sites. The only way to get a choice of bitrates is to join three or four sites, and check each one to see which bitrates your particular choice of music is available in (these do vary widely). The last option is file sharing, or P2P. Given the recent publicity over The Pirate Bay trial, P2P file sharing is probably seeing a resurgence - however if long download times, questionable quality and risk of virus infection are not on your list of priorities, you should give it a miss. If only the music industry would pull it's head out of it's rear, there could easily be a popular, profitable, acceptable and sustainable allofmp3 alternative. But I feel they would sooner milk every last penny out of music fans, and use some of that money to eliminate any competition. At what point will someone in the big record companies have the balls to make the change? Allofmp3 RIP.
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