This blog entry contains much of the same information as the other article on Russia and its music download website www.allofmp3.com. It discusses how the website was symbolically closed and the RIAA dropped it suit against the site for that reason. This allowed the United States and Russia to sign bilateral accords since technically Russia had achieved one of the requirements for strengthening its ties with the West. At the same time, a couple other similar illegal music download online stores continued to operate and were completely their existence was completely ignored by the RIAA and the bilateral negotiations.
    The blog entry does contain one piece of crucial information – the author comments on how he enjoyed his customer experience using allofmp3.com. This raises an issue that is important in my argument: the view of those who use illegal sites to download music. The blog author’s opinion hints to the fact there is no legal website of the same scope and quality as allofmp3.com. Therefore, we can’t expect eastern Europeans to abstain from illegal downloading if the illegal choice is more accessible than the legal one. Also, if the international community insists on infringing countries to crack down on illegal websites and materials, the multinational group should also offer an alternative to infringing sites. Perhaps, the RIAA could have negotiated a deal where it insured that allofmp3.com does pay the necessary licensing fees and becomes legitimate in the eyes of the western countries. It is absurd that the RIAA expects Russians to stop downloading music illegally if these listeners have no legal way to obtain music online.

    This article discusses the closing of www.allofmp3.com - a major Russian music download website, which was considered a significant copyright infringer by western countries. Users could buy songs from the website and the owners claimed that they paid royalties and license fees for the songs and therefore the owners argue that the site was legitimate in accordance with the law of the Russia Federation. Western music companies, however, assert that they do not receive any of these fees. This issue is important for a political reason: the presidents of Russia and the U.S. were meeting at the same time and the article speculates that Russia was trying to improve its relations with the West.
    This source is important for my research because it shows the link between piracy and international politics. Perhaps a way of dealing with countries where piracy is rampant is to tie their success enforcing intellectual property rights to the amicability of their relations with the West. The outcome of this scheme will depend on the country’s size and particular international standing and needs. As this article shows, the closing of www.allofmp3.com was merely a symbolic gesture since a nearly identical site opened up soon after but at a different address. It is also evident that there are domestic inconsistencies when it comes to applying copyright and license laws. For example, even though allofmp3 claims to have paid the necessary licensing fees, the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society says that it has not received these payments for months. This hints that piracy is not just a copyright and intellectual property issue, but that it has links to more lucrative domestic crime operations. Because of the vague wording of the ACTA, it is not clear how this agreement will affect similar situations.