# RIAA sues AllofMP3.com for $1.65 TRILLION dollars **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 1, 2007, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-sues-allofmp3-com-for-1-65-trillion-dollars/386348 "2007-01-01T21:14:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![motomoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a9adbd/32.png) [@motomoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/motomoon)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-sues-allofmp3-com-for-1-65-trillion-dollars/386348/1 "2007-01-01T21:14:44Z")
[Wow.](http://www.zeropaid.com/news/8175/RIAA+sues+AllofMP3+for+$1.65+trillion) You think they’ll take that in installments or just a lump sum? The RIAA has shown how desperate it is in tactics lately, with the random lawsuits and all, but how do they expect to be taken seriously when they do stuff like that? \ One **trillion** dollars! \ (for those that care, yes I did see this on Fark, my most sincere apologies in advance.) ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-sues-allofmp3-com-for-1-65-trillion-dollars/386348/2 "2007-01-01T21:39:48Z")
They’ve turned off the radio and are (literally) headed for Moscow. Has RIAA no sense of public relations left at all? Have they reached the last throes of paranoid monomania? Asswipes. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-sues-allofmp3-com-for-1-65-trillion-dollars/386348/3 "2007-01-01T21:50:48Z")
Because if theres one thing the RIAA has taught us is that [copying](http://www.britneyspears.com/) [is](http://www.christinaaguilera.com/) [Wrong](http://www.jessicasimpson.com/) people! [very](http://www.backstreetboys.com) [wrong](http://www.nsync.com/). Only [evil bastards](http://www.riaa.com/default.asp) steal music and probably worship [Satan](http://www.napster.com/) too. We should just trust them to [do whats right](http://www.betanews.com/article/RIAA_Sues_Deceased_Grandmother/1107532260) and [protect us](http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/index.php?p=742) from the [evil pirates](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/09/09/the_riaa_sees_the_face/). Afterall theres nothing we can do about it, [right?](http://www.boycott-riaa.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Improv\_Geek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b3f665/32.png) [@Improv\_Geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Improv_Geek)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-sues-allofmp3-com-for-1-65-trillion-dollars/386348/4 "2007-01-01T21:57:38Z")
I just love the number. They picked a number so ginormous everyone just gapes and laughs. Even if upheld in court there’s no way they’ll see even a fraction of that. They’re trying to say “this is how much money we’ve lost thanks to [AllofMp3.com](http://AllofMp3.com),” they can’t even claim it includes what has been lost from general file sharing. Piracy isn’t right, but its prevalence is a sign that something is wrong with the system - IE, $20 for a cd isn’t working. – IG ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-sues-allofmp3-com-for-1-65-trillion-dollars/386348/5 "2007-01-01T21:58:30Z")
According to the article, AllofMP3 pays 15% to the Russian equivalent of the RIAA, as required by Russian law. So what’s the RIAA’s beef? They want a bigger cut? They want all music downloading in the world to be based out of the US so they can rule it all? Apparently, they’re trying to pressure Microsoft into giving them a cut of the profit from its new Zune player, and they’re going to target Apple next. Greedy fucking bastards. They’ve shot themselves in the foot, and are now methodically shooting their toes off without even realizing it. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-sues-allofmp3-com-for-1-65-trillion-dollars/386348/6 "2007-01-01T22:02:05Z")
Don’t ya just love how the RIAA frontpage is decorated with photos of fresh-faced, soulful-looking singers with headsets and mics, when their _true_ constituency is sallow, dead-eyed product-pushers who spend all day burbling jargon into cellphones? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-sues-allofmp3-com-for-1-65-trillion-dollars/386348/7 "2007-01-01T22:15:45Z")
[QUOTE=Diceman] So what’s the RIAA’s beef? They want a bigger cut? They want all music downloading in the world to be based out of the US so they can rule it all?. [/QUOTE] Yes. Yes. That’s it exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-sues-allofmp3-com-for-1-65-trillion-dollars/386348/8 "2007-01-01T22:25:27Z")
> [@](#): > > As part of their claim, the labels are seeking $150,000 USD for each of the 11 million songs that were downloaded from June to October 2006 from the [AllofMP3.com](http://AllofMP3.com) website. Huh? Has there been some sort of hyper-inflation in the US recently that I’m not aware of? ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riaa-sues-allofmp3-com-for-1-65-trillion-dollars/386348/9 "2007-01-01T22:27:40Z")
There has been a ton of discussion about the legality of [AllofMP3.com](http://AllofMP3.com)’s business model. The most significant arguments are that A) none of the money the site pays to ROMS (the Russian RIAA-type organization) actually gets to any of the artists, and B) ROMS does not require authorization from copyright holders im order to collect money from sites distributing their music. Read the [legality section](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allofmp3.com#Legality) of Wiki’s [Allofmp3.com](http://Allofmp3.com) entry for relevant points. The bottom line though is that the legality of [Allofmp3.com](http://Allofmp3.com) (and related sites such as [mp3sugar.com](http://mp3sugar.com)) is definitely questionable and all that’s really waiting to happen is for a lawsuit like this one to set precedent. Not that I am trumpeting for the RIAA or anything, I’m just as opposed to their methodology as anyone, but while [AllofMP3.com](http://AllofMP3.com) and other Russian sites who adhere to the ROMS standard of rights management are probably legal within Russia, it’s unlikely that the music is legal outside of it, and since [AllofMP3.com](http://AllofMP3.com) distributes worldwide, the RIAA probably have a at least a bit of a case depending on how the law is applied. $1.6 Trillion is just mind-bogglingly retarded, though.