A week or so ago, I received my usual fanmail update from Mars Lasar, a composer of "new age" synthesizer music. In his email, Mars made mention of his latest release (as all mailing-list artists should do) "Yosemite: The Valley of the Giants." You'll notice on his order page Mars has quite a few CD's he's produced over the years (one of my faves is still "The Eleventh Hour"), and that he's hawking his own wares, so to speak.

In this sense, Mars embodies the epitomy of the digital musician: producing, retailing and profitting from one's own work. "The Dream," as it were...

Curious, I checked AllOfMp3.com's catalog to see if Mars work was available for less than the retail on his website, and sure enough, a couple of Mars' CD's were available for download.

This prompted me to send an email to Mars asking if he was aware of the availability of his work (he was not), in turn prompting Mars to contact AllOfMp3 and request his work be removed from thier catalog.

At first, AllOfMp3 responded with a boilerplate email:

The availability over the Internet of the ALLOFMP3.com materials is
authorized by the license # LS-3М-05-03 of the Russian Multimedia and
Internet Society (ROMS) and license # 006/3M-05 of the Rightholders
Federation for Collective Copyright Management of Works Used Interactively
(FAIR). In accordance to the licenses' terms MediaServices pays license fees
for all materials downloaded from the site subject to the Law of the Russian
Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights". All these materials are solely
for personal use. Any further distribution, resale or broadcasting are
prohibited.

The works available from ALLOFMP3.com are protected by the Law of the
Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights" and are for personal
use of a buyer. Commercial use of such material is prohibited. Recording,
copying, distribution on any media is possible only upon special consent of
a Rightholder.

The user bears sole responsibility for any use and distribution of all
materials received from AllOFMP3.com. This responsibility is dependent on
the national legislation in each user's country of residence. The
Administration of AllOFMP3.com does not possess information on the laws of
each particular country and is not responsible for the actions of foreign
users.

You can contact ROMS or FAIR directly by
www.roms.ru
www.fair-law.ru
Administration of the AllofMP3.com site,
Department of Public Relation and Advertising,
MediaServices, Inc.

In a reply, Mars referred to AllOfMp3's business practices as "immoral" and "unforgivable," asking AllOfMp3 "How would you like it if we stole food from your plates?"

A couple of days later, Mars received a followup from AllOfMp3:

Your material will be removed from the site in 24 hours.
You can contact ROMS and FAIR directly for your authors payments.
We hope, that your plate will never become empty!

As of this posting, Mars' music is no longer in AllOfMp3's catalog. Of the experience, Mars writes:

"Royalties from them, no, it's what they
call in the biz "free promo" LOL. I've never had problems with sales, I have
my work in so many places it does not affect me, in fact these site do
increase awareness, but that's not the point, is it? ... Try getting mechanicals from Russia, my friend."

In Conclusion...

AllofMp3 is a great service. Period. Copyright law's lethargic evolution has cost music producers, fans, and the myriad of services in between innumerable opportunities to sow fertile environments for arts and business to flourish. Mars (and artists like him) gain no real value from AllOfMp3 (royalties, sales tracking, traffic analysis, etc) as producers, thus they have no interest in participating, despite the fact that music fans flock to the site in droves for cheap and convenient downloads.

Michael Robertson had the right idea in 1998: build a service that pays people for the content they upload and promote.

Photo by m.a.x