New MP3Search owners chasing the glory of AllofMP3.com
As you know, in August the MP3Search.ru music store mysteriously disappeared from the Internet . The reason for this was not clear. The owner of the shop, X-Media, did not issue any official statement on this matter and did not answer the phone calls.
The most logical explanation for the disappearance of the site was that the market began sweeping before September 1, 2006, when the new version of the Law “On Copyright and Related Rights” , which allegedly prohibited the placement of MP3 files on the Internet without the consent of the copyright holder, came into force. It is quite natural that some companies decided to leave this business in advance. Apparently, the same decision was made by businessmen from “X-Media” - at least, this is how the situation looked from the outside.
However, September came, followed by October, and all music stores continued to work as usual. The Russian site AllofMP3.com showed complete confidence in their own abilities and absolute calm about the entry into force of the new law: at the end of August they continued to do business as if nothing had happened .
What happened to the MP3Search.Ru website - we only found out when we received a press release from its new owners from the company Fly Mp3. They reported that "MP3Search.Ru, a well-known online music store, resumes its work after a temporary breakdown associated with a change in the company's shareholders." They also stated that the new MP3Search.Ru was "the world's first music store, which raised the level of royalties to 50%." That is, the right holders will receive exactly half of the total revenue from the sale of MP3-files.
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Vladimir Nifontov from MP3Search said that this step will allow the store to strengthen positive relations with the right holders. ” True, this thesis is very doubtful, because the cost of MP3 files in the store still remains humiliatingly low by world standards: only 15 cents apiece, which is an order of magnitude less than in civilized stores. Therefore, right holders can receive only crumbs (by Western standards), even if the percentage of royalties will be raised to 90%.
However, the new owners of the online store truly Napoleonic plans. They plan to pay the owners of the order of one hundred thousand dollars or more for the first month of work. This may even exceed the total monthly volume of payments ever received by right holders from Russian MP3 stores. Within six months, according to the plan of the project owners, with the planned growth of the company's turnover to previous levels of attendance before its reconstruction in the summer, payments may be about one million dollars .
For reference, the total fees of the Russian Authors' Society for 2005 for all rightholders are about $ 43 million , or about $ 3.5 million per month.
Experts express cautious skepticism about the increase in royalties. According to Pavel Vrublevsky of NAUET, it is much more important to establish real control over the payment of royalties by the store, making it transparent for everyone and, most importantly, for the authors themselves: “We believe that this is possible with the help of a third-party financial audit, the generally accepted principle of reconciliation the world. Of course, third-party download control mechanisms and other similar tools will not interfere, but you should not reinvent the wheel: first you need to make sure where and how money travels for rights holders, since whatever payment technology is used and no matter how the melody downloading process works, in any case, when selling a melody, the money for payment goes to the seller on his accounts, which can and should be put on third-party and independent audits, ”said Pavel Vrublevsky.
The new owners of MP3Search.Ru declare that they are ready to guarantee absolute financial openness of business and publication of financial statements, but refuse to tell the most interesting thing - for how much they bought the project.
The most logical explanation for the disappearance of the site was that the market began sweeping before September 1, 2006, when the new version of the Law “On Copyright and Related Rights” , which allegedly prohibited the placement of MP3 files on the Internet without the consent of the copyright holder, came into force. It is quite natural that some companies decided to leave this business in advance. Apparently, the same decision was made by businessmen from “X-Media” - at least, this is how the situation looked from the outside.
However, September came, followed by October, and all music stores continued to work as usual. The Russian site AllofMP3.com showed complete confidence in their own abilities and absolute calm about the entry into force of the new law: at the end of August they continued to do business as if nothing had happened .
What happened to the MP3Search.Ru website - we only found out when we received a press release from its new owners from the company Fly Mp3. They reported that "MP3Search.Ru, a well-known online music store, resumes its work after a temporary breakdown associated with a change in the company's shareholders." They also stated that the new MP3Search.Ru was "the world's first music store, which raised the level of royalties to 50%." That is, the right holders will receive exactly half of the total revenue from the sale of MP3-files.
')
Vladimir Nifontov from MP3Search said that this step will allow the store to strengthen positive relations with the right holders. ” True, this thesis is very doubtful, because the cost of MP3 files in the store still remains humiliatingly low by world standards: only 15 cents apiece, which is an order of magnitude less than in civilized stores. Therefore, right holders can receive only crumbs (by Western standards), even if the percentage of royalties will be raised to 90%.
However, the new owners of the online store truly Napoleonic plans. They plan to pay the owners of the order of one hundred thousand dollars or more for the first month of work. This may even exceed the total monthly volume of payments ever received by right holders from Russian MP3 stores. Within six months, according to the plan of the project owners, with the planned growth of the company's turnover to previous levels of attendance before its reconstruction in the summer, payments may be about one million dollars .
For reference, the total fees of the Russian Authors' Society for 2005 for all rightholders are about $ 43 million , or about $ 3.5 million per month.
Experts express cautious skepticism about the increase in royalties. According to Pavel Vrublevsky of NAUET, it is much more important to establish real control over the payment of royalties by the store, making it transparent for everyone and, most importantly, for the authors themselves: “We believe that this is possible with the help of a third-party financial audit, the generally accepted principle of reconciliation the world. Of course, third-party download control mechanisms and other similar tools will not interfere, but you should not reinvent the wheel: first you need to make sure where and how money travels for rights holders, since whatever payment technology is used and no matter how the melody downloading process works, in any case, when selling a melody, the money for payment goes to the seller on his accounts, which can and should be put on third-party and independent audits, ”said Pavel Vrublevsky.
The new owners of MP3Search.Ru declare that they are ready to guarantee absolute financial openness of business and publication of financial statements, but refuse to tell the most interesting thing - for how much they bought the project.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/4738/
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