From the BPI:

"As the unlicensed sale of music is a criminal offence in the UK, police executed the raid under Section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006 - legislation introduced into UK law in January 2007 specifically to combat online fraud. This is the first time the new fraud legislation has been used in a copyright-related case."

Fraud? Section 2? Importing?

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts2006/ukpga_20060035_en.pdf

"2 Fraud by false representation

(1) A person is in breach of this section if he—

(a) dishonestly makes a false representation, and

(b) intends, by making the representation—

(i) to make a gain for himself or another, or

(ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss."

He sold vouchers to access allofmp3, he delivered voucher for allofmp3, the customers know who allofmp3 are. There's no fraud there and if there were then why wasn't VISA, and PAYPAL also charged when they cleared money for AllOfMp3?

He should sue for false arrest.

The IFPI web-site is a hilarious collection of badly-written industry propaganda and nonsense. They quote reports by anti-virus maker "Symantics", claim that 85% of recruiters consider your music downloading habits when considering you for a job and p2p networks are full of nothing but perverts trying to install webcam spy software on your daughter's PC.

Given the way some people were strongly defending allofmp3.com a few days ago, I hope they're eating their words as regards the legitimacy of this site. Doing business with them in the UK is illegal and the efforts the Russians are making to criminalise what they're doing isn't a moment too soon. I cannot understand how naive some people are in thinking that allofmp3.com is some kind of noble effort in the face of the tyranny of the record companies when they're no better, in fact they're worse. All they're doing is ripping CDs to MP3 and other than bandwidth and server costs the rest is pure profit. No matter how wrongheaded the record industry is, handing over the distribution of music to a bunch of crooks is making a pact with the devil. I'm not defending the ethics of the record industry, but change is not going to come about by breaking the law and violating the rights of copyright holders. There is no doubt the record industry is in need of significant reform but then so are some of the public; after a diet of binary newsgroups through to Napster, P2P people have gotten used to the idea of music being free as though it's some kind of right. They think music should be priced at whatever they're prepared to pay which is frequently nothing. Nothing good will come of antagonising the record industry, people will simply have to agree to meet it halfway. They own all the rights and therefore have all the leverage. The crybabies that want it all for free (is £6 really too much for a CD?) embarrass us all.

If your quoting the law (and it's clear you're no lawyer) what about the bit that says:

"to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss"

That would be the composer, producer, artist and record company all losing money to fraud. Paypal and Visa are common carriers otherwise they'd be in jail for the millions of credit card scams carried out each year.

Next:

"dishonestly makes a false representation, and"

Clearly allofmp3.com have no license to represent the record companies. Every CD tells you the copyright is provided under license.

Next:

"to make a gain for himself or another, or"

All the motives are for financial gain. No one is providing these vouchers for free. Anyone that flaunts the Fraud Act to this degree better start getting used to prison food.

http://mp3sparks.com/ there are a couple of others as well, the problem with the net is you could carry the entire allofmp3 system in a suitcase, like a suitcase nuke but mp3 style.

Who downloads an entire CD from iTunes? (or other sources) The whole idea is to get the one or two good tracks and ignore the drek. I'm punishing the record labels for putting out so much filler. Maybe if bands started publishing individual tracks of quality music and putting them out at regular intervals, instead of going into the studio for months and putting out a CD, I'd buy more tracks.

"The copyright in a work is infringed by a person who, without the licence of the copyright owner, imports into the United Kingdom, otherwise than for his private and domestic use, an article which is, and which he knows or has reason to believe is, an infringing copy of the work." UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_3.htm#mdiv22

So, if I import an mp3 - for my own private and domestic use - that does not infringe copyright? In which case, someone who sells me a voucher to buy that mp3 is not assisting me to infringe copyright either. And provided the voucher is honoured by the agent, in this case allofmp3.com, what possible grounds are there for a fraud charge?

"Doing business with them in the UK is illegal and the efforts the Russians are making to criminalise what they're doing isn't a moment too soon."

No it isn't, and it's certainly not fraud.

Fraud under section 2 is:

"a) dishonestly makes a false representation.... Clearly allofmp3.com have no license to represent the record companies. Every CD tells you the copyright is provided under license."

He makes no false representation. And you have not said *what* false representation he made. You have said *allofmp3* makes a false representation and attempted to conflate the two (him and them), but even allofmp3 don't make a false statement, they clearly state they are only legal in Russia and to check the legal status in your own province!

And they are legal in Russia too, which is why RIAA had to lobby to get the change of law in Russia on 1st June.

AllofMp3s 'crime' is that they made the record companies look bad. They managed to MAKE A HIGHER PRICE THAT THE US WHOLESALE PRICE!

If the Russians changed the law to make the compulsary license payable to the artists directly, they would even have the high moral ground too! Since allofmp3 would be paying more to the artists than they get from iTunes sales.

So yes, I am saying, clear as day, that the police are maliciously misusing the fraud act when no deception has taken place.

(1) A person is in breach of this section if he—

(a) dishonestly makes a false representation, ==AND==

(b) intends, by making the representation—

(i) to make a gain for himself or another, or

(ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss

So surely if a) is false, b) doesn't matter.

What is De Morgan now? Break the line, change the sign, do the time??

Until allofmp3.com moves to Antigua?

is why either allofmp3 does not set itself up as a "service" that has the approval of all of the so called "rights" organisations, or someone like Napster, Itunes, Amazon etc. don't start to provide the service that allofmp3 provides.

Allofmp3 offer on-the-fly compression at your desired rate and codec. They also have what must be the biggest catalogue on the web, which can only be beaten, by p2p, even though p2p is not at all, user friendly.

And, another thing, perhaps, the reason Allofmp3 is apparantly illegal, is because the record companies would rather not get their royalties from the ROM, when it is better for them to boycott it.

"What I don't understand is why either allofmp3 does not set itself up as a "service" that has the approval of all of the so called "rights" organisations"

It's because Gates did a tour back in the late 90's and told the record companies all sorts of scare stories, about how if they ever release music in MP3 format they would have no sales and all copies would be pirated. So instead they should release all their music in WMA+DRM, which he would license to them, for a fee....

And the sheep go Baaaaaaaaa.

As a result of that, they got scared and missed the market opportunity, and their online efforts had flop after flop as they tried this WMA+DRM solution and got no customers.

Jobs came along, and turned down the DRM, and used his trusted position so that customers would tolerate it. Well customers that like Apple would anyway.

But it was clear that the only people who would buy into that crap were Jobs fans, normal people still didn't go for it. Record companies were still no happy, a better watermark solution came along, EMI were not happy giving Jobs their money, they could see the end game, where all their profits are handed to Jobs because he's the only player.

So Jobs came up with an idea to keep them in line. He would sell DRM free music, but in a way designed to fail. You can have DRM free music, BUT only if you pay more, and only if you are prepared to accept 'higher quality'.

But the higher bit rate is above the range of ordinary people's hearing, they can't hear this 'higher quality', and those files are bigger, and in the wrong format for ordinary MP3 players, and more expensive too.

Wow, what a scam. If I have an MP3 player other than an iPod, I'm supposed to pay more for my copy of the music and fit fewer tracks on my player. No Thanks.

So Jobs can tell them that people like his DRM and they should not try this MP3 format.

And the sheep go Baaaaaaaaa.

So Gates and Jobs are leading the record companies like sheep, their best bet would be to simply buy allofmp3 and they'd have the winner on their hands that they disparately have been searching for all this time.

If they're worried they can always watermark the files with the purchasers ID, but since they're selling CDs it's not a big advantage, and they'd be better off just getting into the market.

But Gates and Jobs will be whispering in their ears little scare stories, so they'll never do it.

And the sheep will go Baaaaaaaaa.

People who don't just listen to whatever music is currently in the charts, of course! I have been disappointed with albums occasionally when buying them on impulse, but you grow to like them. Whereas most singles are good for the first few listens but can get old pretty fast, especially if you always hear them being played on the radio. The best songs are the ones that don't hit you immediately, that you suddenly one day realise that you identify with for some reason. Well, that's all just my opinion of course. And I won't even see a reply because El Reg doesn't notify you of other comments being posted (will go check the settings just now just in case you can turn notifications on..)

Does the record industry - or their lapdogs pursuing this futile battle - seriously believe that harassing allofmp3 is really going to prevent music downloads?

Seems to me that the industry is being led by the nose, by companies promising to stop downloads without the slightest chance of doing so. Who's making false allegations here?

Tech solutions won't work; legal solutions won't work. The public wants this stuff, and if the industry wishes to make a buck out of this they should follow AOMP3. For every site that shuts down, another will pop up. There's as much chance of stopping this as winning the War on Terror - i.e. even less than the War on Drugs.

CD