Are Off-Shore Music Stores Legal in the US?
December 9, 2015 8:36 AM Subscribe
I was Googling an obscure 1960s recording that's never been released digitally and was surprised to find an mp3 of it for sale on a music store website I'd never heard of before. The store seems legit as it's pretty comparable in catalog and services to the iTunes or Amazon stores, is not on the "dark" web but is out in the open, and they accept credit cards but their prices are crazy cheap. The site I found appears to be based in Ukraine but I've found a few others based in other countries. Can I legally buy from these places?!?
Probably not legal and as said above, 1000% do not give these people your CC.
posted by selfnoise at 8:45 AM on December 9, 2015
posted by selfnoise at 8:45 AM on December 9, 2015
It's cheaper you say?
Which do you think is more likely:
They negotiated better deals with the big labels than Apple and Amazon were able to
They didn't do that, and aren't paying licensing fees.
posted by aubilenon at 8:49 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Which do you think is more likely:
They negotiated better deals with the big labels than Apple and Amazon were able to
They didn't do that, and aren't paying licensing fees.
posted by aubilenon at 8:49 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: people don't seem to be answering the question. they are focussing on whether the seller is legal, not whether it is legal for you to buy.
i have been trying to search for applicable law, but am not coming up with much except consumer protection statutes.
there's info here on counterfeit goods, but i don't think that applies in this case.
posted by andrewcooke at 9:15 AM on December 9, 2015
i have been trying to search for applicable law, but am not coming up with much except consumer protection statutes.
there's info here on counterfeit goods, but i don't think that applies in this case.
posted by andrewcooke at 9:15 AM on December 9, 2015
These were pretty big in the post-Napster, pre-Spotify days - AllOfMP3 was the most famous one but there were lots of others. I didn't realize they were still around. Yes, the music is completely unlicensed. I never used AllOfMP3 myself but iirc my friends who did use it never noticed any subsequent identity theft - however, I can't vouch for its modern successors.
posted by theodolite at 9:16 AM on December 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 9:16 AM on December 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
Buying music from an almost-certainly (like, "The Sun will rise in the East tomorrow" level certainty) unauthorized distributor of that music is against the law, yes. And there is a chance that someone will go after that seller and get its records and discover that you were among its many, many customers. And there is a chance that the RIAA will go after you after that happens. Those combined chances are very, very low.
If you would be morally okay with downloading this recording from Pirate Bay for nothing, then go ahead and buy it for crazy cheap from a Ukrainian site, because it's pretty much the same thing. But maybe get a temporary credit card number or set up a one-shot PayPal account or whatever.
posted by Etrigan at 9:26 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
If you would be morally okay with downloading this recording from Pirate Bay for nothing, then go ahead and buy it for crazy cheap from a Ukrainian site, because it's pretty much the same thing. But maybe get a temporary credit card number or set up a one-shot PayPal account or whatever.
posted by Etrigan at 9:26 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
RIAA unsuccessfully sued AllOfMP3 for $1.65 trillion (which was something like 10% of the US GNP at the time, lol) but they never went after its users.
Here's an interesting FPP from 2004, which was about the height of its popularity.
posted by theodolite at 9:35 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
Here's an interesting FPP from 2004, which was about the height of its popularity.
posted by theodolite at 9:35 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: As @andrewcooke notes, my question wasn't whether they were legally selling the files. That is an entirely different question and one for which I cannot ever truly know the answer. My assumption is that it's legal since it certainly appears to be so. Like I said, the site I found was listed in search engines and is not trading in the shadows. It sure seems legit. I mean, if it wasn't legit, wouldn't someone have shut it down or blocked access to it by now?
But you're right in that it does seem fishy, so I'm trying to do some homework.
posted by Jamesonian at 10:19 AM on December 9, 2015
But you're right in that it does seem fishy, so I'm trying to do some homework.
posted by Jamesonian at 10:19 AM on December 9, 2015
I mean, if it wasn't legit, wouldn't someone have shut it down or blocked access to it by now?
It took two years to shut down Napster, which was a highly publicized site operating in the U.S. Pirate Bay is still running after 12 years and countless attempts to shut it down, and you can find it via any search engine. The existence of moles doesn't mean that no one's trying to whack them.
posted by Etrigan at 10:26 AM on December 9, 2015
It took two years to shut down Napster, which was a highly publicized site operating in the U.S. Pirate Bay is still running after 12 years and countless attempts to shut it down, and you can find it via any search engine. The existence of moles doesn't mean that no one's trying to whack them.
posted by Etrigan at 10:26 AM on December 9, 2015
It may be legal according to Ukrainian law, or simply tolerated or ignored by authorities there. It's definitely not legal by US law, but the feds can't just shut down a Ukrainian site. There are many, many overseas sites that violate US copyright law but are easily found on Google - live TV streams, free ebook libraries, torrent trackers, etc.
posted by theodolite at 10:28 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 10:28 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
Best answer: i don't want to threadsit, but again, if some entity is doing something illegal it doesn't necessarily mean that it is illegal for a third party to buy from it (unless someone has a law that says otherwise, which would be hugely pertinent so please post).
come on. it's not that hard to understand the difference.
for example: maybe i make cellphones (abroad) using labour conditions illegal in the usa. then i sell the phones to you. that doesn't necessarily mean that it is illegal for you to buy the phones. there are at least two "loopholes": the extent to which american law applies elsewhere, and the extent to which the consumer is responsible for the vendor's infractions.
posted by andrewcooke at 10:46 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
come on. it's not that hard to understand the difference.
for example: maybe i make cellphones (abroad) using labour conditions illegal in the usa. then i sell the phones to you. that doesn't necessarily mean that it is illegal for you to buy the phones. there are at least two "loopholes": the extent to which american law applies elsewhere, and the extent to which the consumer is responsible for the vendor's infractions.
posted by andrewcooke at 10:46 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Is it legal? Maybe.
AllOfMP3 was, as it turns out, quite possibly legal in the jurisdictions in which it was based. The RIAA lost their suit against them, which itself says something. They paid royalties (or at least appear to have paid royalties) to the relevant licensing agency (ROMS). They were undoubtedly exploiting a legal loophole, but there are plenty of businesses that do that to gain a competitive advantage. Sidebar: as I recall the RIAA never advised anyone to collect the royalties which ROMS collected from AllOfMP3. They could have, but that would have undermined their attempts to extract even more money from them. AllOfMP3 eventually went underground when their CC processors were bullied into killing the accounts. They were not shut down by any authorities.
The real question is whether or not their legality to operate where they were based meant that it was legal for a US customer to purchase from them. The RIAA would, naturally, tell you no since they don't stand to make much off of that. But they're not a court, and AFAIK no court has ever established whether or not such an arrangement would in fact be legal for a US resident.
So the bottom line as to whether it's legal is: if you believe the RIAA then no, if you are interested in what US courts would say, nobody knows since there hasn't been a relevant case yet.
(Now obviously the above is about AoMP3. There are plenty of other services that likely do not pay royalties, and I'd be willing to bet that those are illegal even in the places where they're based.)
posted by -1 at 10:53 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
AllOfMP3 was, as it turns out, quite possibly legal in the jurisdictions in which it was based. The RIAA lost their suit against them, which itself says something. They paid royalties (or at least appear to have paid royalties) to the relevant licensing agency (ROMS). They were undoubtedly exploiting a legal loophole, but there are plenty of businesses that do that to gain a competitive advantage. Sidebar: as I recall the RIAA never advised anyone to collect the royalties which ROMS collected from AllOfMP3. They could have, but that would have undermined their attempts to extract even more money from them. AllOfMP3 eventually went underground when their CC processors were bullied into killing the accounts. They were not shut down by any authorities.
The real question is whether or not their legality to operate where they were based meant that it was legal for a US customer to purchase from them. The RIAA would, naturally, tell you no since they don't stand to make much off of that. But they're not a court, and AFAIK no court has ever established whether or not such an arrangement would in fact be legal for a US resident.
So the bottom line as to whether it's legal is: if you believe the RIAA then no, if you are interested in what US courts would say, nobody knows since there hasn't been a relevant case yet.
(Now obviously the above is about AoMP3. There are plenty of other services that likely do not pay royalties, and I'd be willing to bet that those are illegal even in the places where they're based.)
posted by -1 at 10:53 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Napster and Pirate Bay are different in that neither are selling anything themselves. They, like Bit Torrent, were methods individuals could use to illegally share their previously purchased files. The site I found (which I'm not listing as I don't want to give it any advertising in case it is illegal) is selling the items themselves.
posted by Jamesonian at 11:01 AM on December 9, 2015
posted by Jamesonian at 11:01 AM on December 9, 2015
The No Electronic Theft Act (NET) Act:
The fact that they're making money off it doesn't change the underlying issue if they're not authorized to distribute the material.
posted by Etrigan at 11:04 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
(b) Criminal Offenses.--Section 506(a) of title 17, United States"Reproduction" has been interpreted to include downloading, because you're making a copy of a work. So you wouldn't be criminally liable for getting one copy of this recording. However, in A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., the court found:
Code, is amended to read as follows:
(a) Criminal Infringement.--Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either--
(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,
shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.
Napster users who download files containing copyrighted music violate plaintiffs' reproduction rights.Napster and Pirate Bay are different in that neither are selling anything themselves. They, like Bit Torrent, were methods individuals could use to illegally share their previously purchased files.
The fact that they're making money off it doesn't change the underlying issue if they're not authorized to distribute the material.
posted by Etrigan at 11:04 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
There's always a chance someone could go after you for "receipt of stolen goods," but I don't think I've ever seen a prosecution for that with individual consumers. They don't even seem to use it against people who buy TVs from a dude in a parking lot who says you don't want to know where he got his stuff.
Realistically, you've probably violated a statute or three, but that's true of nearly any purchase of goods internationally. Of the many parties involved (website owner, each of the banks, payment processor, server farm guy, code-writing dude, person who ripped the CD, person who "obtained" the media originally, and so on) you have probably violated the fewest number of laws. Your degree of legal exposure doesn't have all that much to do with the amount of money you've spent, but - unless you're emailing all your friends to tell them this is a great deal - the odds of you getting prosecuted (or even sued) do tend to correlate with your dollar-figure level of involvement.
You probably broke several laws just getting to work today and in several cases you had to choose between two illegal options with no other alternatives; it's very easy to break the law, but substantially more difficult to get yourself actually prosecuted. I mean, if you have to ask "is this illegal," I'm absolutely certain a motivated prosecutor could create a narrative sufficient to support an indictment. So the meaningful question is more like "would anyone be motivated to put together an indictment," and the answer to that is "probably not, but there are some wacky prosecutors out there."
You may also be pissing off a mobster or a local dictatorship - or worse, doing exactly what they want. Don't be fooling around with Eastern European online commerce right now.
posted by SMPA at 11:08 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Realistically, you've probably violated a statute or three, but that's true of nearly any purchase of goods internationally. Of the many parties involved (website owner, each of the banks, payment processor, server farm guy, code-writing dude, person who ripped the CD, person who "obtained" the media originally, and so on) you have probably violated the fewest number of laws. Your degree of legal exposure doesn't have all that much to do with the amount of money you've spent, but - unless you're emailing all your friends to tell them this is a great deal - the odds of you getting prosecuted (or even sued) do tend to correlate with your dollar-figure level of involvement.
You probably broke several laws just getting to work today and in several cases you had to choose between two illegal options with no other alternatives; it's very easy to break the law, but substantially more difficult to get yourself actually prosecuted. I mean, if you have to ask "is this illegal," I'm absolutely certain a motivated prosecutor could create a narrative sufficient to support an indictment. So the meaningful question is more like "would anyone be motivated to put together an indictment," and the answer to that is "probably not, but there are some wacky prosecutors out there."
You may also be pissing off a mobster or a local dictatorship - or worse, doing exactly what they want. Don't be fooling around with Eastern European online commerce right now.
posted by SMPA at 11:08 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Ask them if they're authorized to distribute the recording.
My guess is if they were legitimate they'd be operating out of a country without the fraught online reputation that Ukranian businesses have. But see if they have anything to say.
posted by ardgedee at 11:18 AM on December 9, 2015
My guess is if they were legitimate they'd be operating out of a country without the fraught online reputation that Ukranian businesses have. But see if they have anything to say.
posted by ardgedee at 11:18 AM on December 9, 2015
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The chance that they actually have a license to sell that song is negligible, which means this is violation of copyright, a bootleg.
Also, I would only give my credit card number to someone in Ukraine if I was compelled to do so at gunpoint.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:44 AM on December 9, 2015 [5 favorites]