Well, after surviving several close calls, it looks like Russia’s AllofMP3 has finally caved in to RIAA pressure. The first scare was in the fall of 2006 but this turned out to be bogus and the site stayed up until at least April of 2007.

The second scare came shortly thereafter, around summertime. Each attempt to access their website returned an error message stating the site was closed for maintenance. However, when the AllTunes client was fired up, not only were usernames and passwords recognized, music catalogue searches and balance refills were still functioning. It seemed that those crafty, music-lovin’ Russian mobsters gave up the AllofMP3 domain name but never shut down their servers which the AllTunes client connected to via IP Address. Needless to say, I’m sure there were a few weeks of frenzied downloads in anticipation of the day AllofMP3 finally bit the dust.

Things became worse in the fall when users couldn’t refill their balance. It seemed that the RIAA and US Gov’t was slowly squeezing payment vendors - not only that, but selective ISP’s were blocking requests to AllOfMP3 servers.

Alas, the day of reckoning has finally come. Download attempts from AllofMP3 with the AllTunes client has no effect. Stupid RIAA. Don’t despair yet, from what information I have gathered, it looks like the AllofMP3 founders used a loophole to spawn a whole slew of replacement sites - stating that the original cease and desist was applicable only to existing sites and not new ones! That’s rich, the RIAA bitten by legalese. So, here is the silver lining in this dark tale. Of course, this is just for informational purposes - illegal downloading is evil and I don’t condone it at all.