Hi all,
I have noticed that for the moment it would appear AllOfMp3 has been classed as 'legal' due to loopholes in the Russian laws...

but...

If many of us should download from them now, and in the near or distant future AllOfMp3 successfully get sued by the RIAA and whoever else, does this mean those of us who download(ed) from AllOfMp3 are also under threat/legal proceedings/possible criminal convictions ?

Any input appreciated

Not criminal, at least. Civil...anything can happen.

For me it is more of a moral issue than legal to use these sites as they do not appear to be paying royalties to the artists or copyright holders.

Frankly, it seems more insulting to the artists that some people are now making money from selling their works thru a "loophole" and keeping all the proceeds. I have actually been told by someone in the music world that artists would probably rather see folks using a free P2P or BitTorrent as a source of illegal MP3's than to see some 3rd party getting paid to rip them off.

I seriously doubt that anyone will ever get sued for using either of these sites. If it even becomes remotely possible, the RIAA in the past has given fair warning of future legal actions. So if you see these warnings and drop all activity, I think you would be safe.

This is just my opinion and it means nothing.

But as an aside. Why in the heck don't these guys charge just a tad more and pay the people that provide them with their source of income? Let's face it, they could even charge 99 cents a track and folks would flock there as they don't add any DRM! To me this is a better product.