TechCrunch notes today that the issue of AllOfMP3 seems to be the key blocker when it comes to Rus­sia join­ing the WTO.

Fact is, I pay for any music I don’t get as a gift through AllOfMP3. I don’t even think about going to Bit­Tor­rent or the other shar­ing net­works. AllOfMP3 deliv­ers me high qual­ity, DRM-​​free music in pretty much any for­mat I like, and for all intents and pur­poses, it’s legal.

The US Gov­ern­ment, and the RIAA inter­ests dri­ving it still don’t seem to under­stand that for the major­ity of smart users who care about DRM, it’s not the DRM itself to which we object. What we object to is the overly-​​restrictive rules that DRM imposes on us. With my music, I want to be able to:

  • obtain it legally
  • ensure fair pay­ments go to those involved in its mak­ing (par­tic­u­larly artists)
  • reuse it in an unlim­ited (but fair) way by lis­ten­ing to it on any device (stereo, com­puter, music player, car stereo, CD, etc.)
  • have fair use rights extend to me using a sub­set of the music as a part of another piece (mashup, remix,etc.) — not that I per­son­ally have the skill to do this

I’m more than happy to pay a rea­son­able price for music. Frankly, AllOfMP3 is ridicu­lously under­priced — US$1.20-$1.50 per album is insanse — I’d be happy to pay the US iTunes price (as opposed to the Aus­tralian iTunes price, which is a 20 per cent markup over the US).

If the US gov­ern­ment and the RIAA were smart, they’d do a licens­ing deal with AllOfMP3, rather than try­ing to shut them down.