Russian Online Music Stores Left Cash-Strapped
Russian online music stores may lose the financial backing of ChronoPay which processes payments made by Visa, MasterCard and other credit cards. ChronoPay, which controls 95 percent of Russian online music sales, wants the web-sites to obtain a license from Russian copyright authorities. Those in the market, however, doubt that this initiative will legalize the market.
From April 1, ChronoPay will stop offering its payment services to online mp3 stores which operate under licenses of the Russian Multimedia and Digital Networks Society, the company announced Tuesday.
The Internet service payment provider has decided to work only with one organization for collective copyright management. “We shall not cooperate with stores which have licenses of both the Multimedia and Digital Networks Society and the Rightholders Federation for Copyright Collective Management,” said Denis Sotin, vice-president at ChronoPay. The company says that unlike the Multimedia Society, the Copyright Federation promised it would audit the web-sites and pay royalties to copyright holders.
ChronoPay provides Internet payment services to 95 percent of Russian online music stores, including such top web-sites as Allofmp3.com, Alltunes.com and Mp3sugar.com.
Denis Sotin says that the operation under the Federation’s licenses will make the market more transparent. Russian online music stores are estimated to sell mp3 files for up to $50 million a year. Industry experts, however, sound skeptical of this initiative. “The Federation is no different from the Multimedia and Digital Networks Society – it also has nothing to do with rightholders,” Igor Pozhitkov, head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s Russian office, told Kommersant.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 21, 2007
|
