I ran across a very well written review of
ALLOFMP3.com. The review covers the services offered and solidly concludes with quite a bit on the legality issue (they even have short interviews with ALLOFMP3.com and the Russian Organization for Multimedia & Digital Systems (ROMS)). As I've already said, I'm a user and am fully convinced they are legal. Here is more fuel on the fire that might change your mind.
http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3info.htm
ALLOFMP3.com is a very affordable music download site run out of Russia.
They charge only $0.01 per megabyte downloaded and accept credit card or paypal. They have a massive catalog and some of the coolest features you'll find anywhere. My favorite feature (besides the price) is their Online Encoding (OE).
When selecting a song available through OE (which most of their catalog is), you'll be prompted to choose your desired format and quality level. Formats include MP3, OGG, WMA, and MPC. Recently they've added AAC (Apple's shite - .m4a) and one or more of the lossless formats (lossless is currently only available on a limited number of tracks). Personally, I like downloading in the MP3 format at 256Kbps using the LAME codec for standard listening. If I'm going to burn a CD from the downloaded music, I download in MP3 format using the 'insane' LAME codec quality setting.
Now, as great as I think this service is, I've always questioned the legality of it. They clearly state that
they are legal, but I always wanted a better explaination as to why they're legal and how the Russian system works. I've done some research into their legality and found a little info, but today I came across something that cleared it up quite nicely. Reading this has firmly convinced me they are legal and should be for some time to come.
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