This morning, I kept running across news reports that the Russian government finally relented and agreed to shut down AllofMP3.com, a website freqently cited by the USTR as a perfect illustration of Russia's poor record on IP enforcement.

I was just about post when my paranoid self decieded to check if it was really down or not.

Well, the site appears to still be up. In fact, the company hasn't even responded yet to the news. Earlier this month, however, they did post a handy "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Regarding The Legality of the AllOfMP3 pay service"

A sample:

Is the ALLOFMP3 pay service legal? Yes; we believe it is legal in Russia under Articles 44 and 45 of the Law of the Russian Federation No. 5351-1 "On Copyright and Related Rights" dated July 9, 1993, as amended, (the "Copyright Law"), which authorizes Russian non-profit Russian organizations for collective management of copyrights ("Russian Licensing Societies") to grant licenses to entities such as ALLOFMP3. ALLOFMP3 has up-to-date licenses from the Russian Licensing Societies, which includes license no. 006/3M-05 from the Federation of Rights Holders for Collective Management of Copyright with Respect to the Use of Musical Works in Interactive Regime ("FAIR") and license no. LS-3M-05-03 from the Russian Organization on Collective Management of Rights of Authors and Other Right Holders in Multimedia, Digital Networks & Visual Arts ("ROMS").

Article 44 of the Copyright Law allows holders of intellectual property rights to establish non-profit organizations such as ROMS. The Russian Copyright Law provides non-profit Russian Licensing Societies with a right to grant licenses and to collect royalties for the use of music without necessarily obtaining permission from the copyright owners, as stated in Article 45(3):

Such licenses grant the right to use (in a manner permitted by such licenses) all works of art and objects of related rights and are issued on behalf of all authors and related rightholders, including those who did not give an authorization to the organization [Russian Licensing Societies] as described in Section 2 of this Article. (emphasis added).