In an interesting ruling, a Russian court has ordered Visa to process payments to Internet Audit, the owners of Allofmp3.com. This presents something of a problem for Visa, as Allofmp3.com has been declared illegal by another Russian court and shut down.
According to Internet Audit, the court ruled in their favour because:
“the decision on whether copyright has been violated or not can only be taken by court based on a suit filed by exclusive copyright holders, but neither IFPI nor Visa own such rights”.
I don’t even pretend to understand the mechanics of Russian law that allow this, but there seem to be some pretty interesting implications.
Firstly, Visa must process credit card payments to other Russian music download sites running on the same legal basis as Allofmp3.com, but which have not (yet) been declared illegal. This includes mp3Sparks.com, which is a virtual clone of Allofmp3.com, and the Alltunes software, both of which are owned by Internet Audit, and both of which seem to run the exact same database and underlying software as Allofmp3.com
And, secondly, this ruling would seem to mean that Visa might well be obliged to continue processing payments to any poker websites operating out of Russia, which would put it in an interesting dilemma with regard to the recent US ban on poker.
- What next?
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I find it very odd that a court can order Visa to process payments. Being a business decision, is that not at the discretion of the Visa management?
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