I’ve never actually checked out allofmp3.com, the infamous Russian site that offers a ton of music for prices that are more in line with the non-physicality of digital files. Not for any moral reason, but because I remember the bad old days of the late 1990s, when clicking on dodgy-seeming links looking for an .mp3 caused tons of windows to pop-up or other weird things.
But while I never bothered, I count myself a fan of anything that causes fuming at the RIAA. And a lot of y’all took advantage of their services, so much so that people were saying that it could keep have Russia out of the World Trade Organization.
That’s right. Forget all of that stuff about Putin’s insanity, and all of those unsecured nukes, but let’s go after the people who provide the cheap and 100 percent legal under Russian law downloads. So, the pressure was on, and just the other day, after Visa International suspended credit card service, allofmp3.com cried “ôÑÂôюшúð,” and changed their business model.
Sorry, kids. No more are you going to get your 100% legal according to Russian Copyright Law songs for the special low price of one U.S. dollar. Nope, instead, are going to get their music for free!
AllofMP3 said Tuesday that as of Wednesday, its business model would move toward an ad-supported distribution of free content. The company, which previously charged about $1 an album, plans to offer consumers a new software program that allows them to download any song from the site for free. AllofMP3 claims to have a catalogue of hundreds of thousands of albums, increasing at a rate of 1,000 per month.
Wow, that kinda sounds familiar. But I just can’t put my finger on where I’ve heard this before. Oh, wait, there’s more:
Users of the new service will only be able to listen to songs by using the AllofMP3 software, and the songs will be usable on just one computer at a time. The interface, called Music for the Masses, will initially be available for Microsoft Windows, with an Apple version arriving in several weeks.
Seriously. Where have I heard this before? Something really crappy. Hmmm. FREE . . . Ad-supported downloads . . . awful DRM restrictions . . . no Apple support. Something that I would never bother with in a million, zillion years.
Ohmigod, allofmp3.com has turned into Spiral Frog!!!
It’s actually kind of funny: perhaps it’s a dark Russian commentary on Spiral Frog spurred on by too many vodka-fueled nights without darkness.
Well, whether it’s Spiral Frog or ÑÂÿøрðûьý ÃȄÂóушúð, it doesn’t make it something I’m going to waste my time on. My guess is that the people who loved them for their cheap, portable music will abandon them pretty quickly.
Still, let’s have a moment of silence for allofmp3.com, yet another casualty in the war on digital music.
They do both. The free music is just a bonus… their old service is just as great as ever, so I don’t see any reason to get upset about this.
This really isn’t that bad. Think of it as an unlimited sampler of their entire library of music. They’re still selling songs dirt cheap. I need to put together a review of their service. The music industry could learn a lot from AllOfMp3.com.