UK High Court frees BPI to pursue AllofMP3

By Alun Williams

Posted on 3 Jul 2006 at 12:46

The British recording industry, in the shape of the BPI, has the Russian downloads site AllofMP3.com in its legal sights.

The British trade association has been granted permission by the UK High Court to serve legal proceedings in Russia against the controversial website. What it also means, announces the BPI, is that the case against AllofMP3 can be heard in a UK court even though it is a Russian website.

AllofMP3 has always maintained it is working within Russian regulations, but the site is widely used by international visitors.

'This is an important step forward in our battle against AllofMP3.com,' said BPI General Counsel Roz Groome. 'We have maintained all along that this site is illegal and that the operator of the site is breaking UK law by making sound recordings available to UK based customers without the permission of the copyright owners. Now we will have the opportunity to demonstrate in the UK courts the illegality of this site.'

The BPI first announced plans for this legal action at the start of last month, as the site came under international attack. The effect, however, of the legal attacks has seemingly been to boost traffic to the controversial site.

Whether this is because existing users are making the most of the service before it potentially disappears or whether all the publicity has garnered new users remains a matter of speculation.

How much can the BPI hope to achieve with this latest legal move? Is it right to take such action? Leave your comments via the link below.