It appears that the gravy train known as AllofMP3 has come to an end. Both Visa and Mastercard have blacklisted the service. And from what I can gather, PayPal has refused to honor the service too. If users cannot pay, AllofMP3 will certainly not be able to sell.
The Register – Thursday 19th October 2006:
Mediaservices, the owner of the controversial music download site AllofMP3, will pursue “every avenue” to overturn the decisions of Visa and Mastercard to stop processing payments to the company.
In a statement today, the Russian company said the blacklisting was “arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory”. Visa and Mastercard had no authority to judge the legality of AllofMP3’s services, and their “determination that the company’s activities were illegal is patently erroneous and without legal merit”, it said. “AllofMP3 has not been found by any court in the world to be in violation of any law…To disqualify AllofMP3 based on a payment processing company’s whim is irresponsible and sets a bad precedence.”
Update: As of 5:40 EST this error message appears on AllofMP3’s website:
Unfortunately credit card payment is not available at the moment.
Update: Here’s a pretty good blog entry from USA Today entitled: “Visa, Mastercard now deciding copyright law“
Visa and Mastercard say they will no longer process payments to Russian music site AllofMP3.com.
Which seems pretty outrageous. At this point, AllofMP3 is certainly controversial and is making a lot of people in the music world angry — but it has not been found guilty of anything. No court has ordered it shut down for copyright infringement. No one has been arrested or tried.
If Visa and Mastercard refuse payments, they will put the site out of business. How else can it get paid? (The site says it doesn’t accept American Express — maybe there’s a TV commercial in that.)
So this is a terrible precedent for the Internet. The two major credit card companies have decided themselves that a site is illegitimate and are colluding to put it out of business. Who’s next on their list?
here is the problem – this is easier said than done because they can just find another 3rd party to run the payment through
“this is easier said than done because they can just find another 3rd party to run the payment through”
But it’s got to be a third party people can trust and that the CC companies won’t also blacklist.
It’s bad enough giving your credit card information to the Russian mob, er, I mean the wonderful people behind AllofMP3, but to give it to some other mob, er, I mean legitimate Russian organization, seems scary.
read the comments folks. The site is still up. You can still use credit cards. You just have to try the alternative methods mentioned here on the comments.
I do not know why John D. is saying that CC transaction are gone, when so many others are saying they are working fine.
Editor’s note: Kevin. Sit down. Breath. There, don’t you feel so much better? We realize that some people are able to pay with their CC while others are not. That’s why there’s a “maybe” in the subject line. See this screen shot here. That’s the error message I got just seconds ago.
“But it’s got to be a third party people can trust and that the CC companies won’t also blacklist.
It’s bad enough giving your credit card information to the Russian mob, er, I mean the wonderful people behind AllofMP3, but to give it to some other mob, er, I mean legitimate Russian organization, seems scary.”
You’ve got to be kidding!… First of all, i’m not sure if you know, but they’ve ALWAYS used a third party payment service.
Second, are you really saying that you can distinguish the difference between their old service “chronopay” and their new service “E-Centru.com”? Apparently I am the only one that noticed the change.
Think about it!… Chronopay got blocked so they set up another front. they can continue to do this forever. the only way to block this is to embargo Russia, or block all traffic to russia on the internet.
Editor’s note: See this screen shot from a few seconds ago!
Did you read the comments, Kevin? It is taking a few days for Visa and Mastercard to implement their new policy of banning transactions with allofmp3, but that doesn’t mean the bans will not happen.
The bottom line is that the Russian government (or The Mob) is going to have to either ____ or get off the pot. If it wants any chance of joining the World Trade Association an organization as blatantly illegal as allofmp3 has to go.
Correction: World Trade Organization.