Dubiously-legal Russian online music retailer allofmp3.com is no more. In its place: an identical site, located at mp3sparks.com. What’s the deal?

First reported by the UK’s Times Online, the corporate owners of the English-language allofmp3.com, MediaServices, quietly discontinued their service under the old domain and moved it to mp3sparks.com recently in response to criticism from copyright holders, the US government, and even the Russian government. Why was everyone so upset at a site that billed itself as the second-largest online music retailer? Selling songs at a fraction of their cost elsewhere tends to create that type of response.

Although the price charged by the Russian sites varies based on the quality level of the selected MP3 files, many tracks can be found at a tenth of their corresponding prices on iTunes. Want the latest White Stripes record at 192 Kbps? Just $2.08 for the full album. Want to help Justin Timberlake bring Sexy Back? That’ll only run you 17 cents.

Although the Russian company claimed to pay out 15 cents on the dollar in rights fees (to a Russian organization that would in theory then forward them on to copyright holders), rightsholders refused to accept the payments on the grounds that they were never legally negotiated.

There is little observable difference between the new site (which has actually been up for several months) and allofmp3.com, which was presumably shut down by Russian government officials in an attempt to bolster its chances of joining the WTO. Additional pressure was provided by Visa and Mastercard, who ceased processing payments for the site.

Lest you think that the service isn’t legal, MP3sparks.com posts a helpful notice explaining its right to sell cheap music: Perhaps something was lost in translation from Russian:

The availability over the Internet of the Mp3Sparks.com materials is authorized by the license 31/ZM-07 of the noncommercial partnership Rightholders Federation for Collective Copyright Management of Works Used Interactively (NP FAIR). In accordance to the licenses’ terms MediaServices pays license fees for all materials downloaded from the site subject to the Law of the Russian Federation “On Copyright and Related Rights”. All these materials are solely for personal use.

While we’re not sure if the domain switch was enough to fool the government(s), it didn’t fool the credit card companies. MP3Sparks.com is not currently accepting Visa or MC payments from the States. Looks like it’s back to full price, illegal downloading, or even more dubious bargain foreign sites like iomoio.com. (We support the first choice, but that’s just us.)

Russia shuts down Allofmp3.com (Times Online)
AllofMP3 Shuts Down, Reopens As MP3Sparks.com (Wired)