Could a site claiming to hold foreign distribution rights be a legal way to download copyrighted music?
Sure. Music licensing agreements vary from distributor to distributor and from country to country. If Allofmp3.com has legitimately acquired Russian distribution rights, it would be legal to download from them the same way that copyright holders have licensed iTunes and Napster in the United States, according to James Gibson, who teaches law at the University of Richmond and wrote a brief supporting the music industry in the MGM v. Grokster case. But get out your balaclava, pop the caviar, and activate those frequent-flyer miles: Because in order to download legally from a Russian rights-holder, you’d likely have to actually go to Russia. Foreign-rights-holders usually only control the copyright within the country itself, and that includes Internet distribution. (For those of you who prefer traveling to warmer climates, there’s a similar—and similarly dubious—Spanish service called weblisten.com.) There is one other argument that might save Allofmp3, albeit an admittedly far-fetched on
