Thursday, October 05, 2006

allofmp3.com stands between Russia and the WTO

News reports are surfacing that the popular, too-good-to-be-true Russian DRM-free website, allofmp3.com, is being targeted by top US trade officials as a major point of contention in Russia's bid to join the WTO. "I have a hard time imagining Russia becoming a member of the WTO and having a Web site like that up and running that is so clearly a violation of everyone's intellectual property rights," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab told reporters after a speech to a services industry organization.

Apparently some Russian officials are unconvinced of the site's illegality, and until Russia is officially a member of the WTO, it is not bound by its rules, so this situation's outcome remains an interesting mystery.

Links to news stories here and here.

1 comment:

Elke Kolodinski said...

Our government is so deep in the featherbed of the music industry that the existence of A WEBSITE drives them to block WTO status for Russia with everything else Russia has to offer the world in trade. The absurdity takes my breath away.