Russian Download Site Is Popular and Possibly Illegal - New York Times

Russian Download Site Is Popular and Possibly Illegal - New York Times: "AllofMP3 asserts its legality by citing a license issued by a collecting society, the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society.

In most countries, the collecting societies that receive royalty payments for the sale or use of artistic works need reciprocal agreements with overseas copyright holders, according to agencies that represent right holders.

According to Russia's 1993 copyright law, however, collecting societies are permitted to act on behalf of rights holders who have not authorized them to do so. Collecting societies have thus been set up to gather royalties for foreign copyright holders without their authorization. Infringement cases have also affected foreign-produced software, films and books.

The result is that numerous organizations in Russia receive royalties for the use of foreign artistic works, but never pass on that money to the artists or music companies, according to the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, the umbrella organization for collecting societies.

'These collecting agencies are thieves and frauds because they accept money while pretending to represent artists,' said Eric Baptiste, director general of the confederation. 'They play off a bizarre aspect of the Russian law that we are lobbying to change.'

Consumers"