MP3panda is the cheapest online music service! Is MP3panda legal or illegal?

[gillianreynolds]

MP3panda is by far the cheapest service around. Most albums leave the store for under a dollar, some even for a few cents. Individual songs can be purchased for 0.05$ standard price. The songs are encoded at a minimum of 192kbs, although a lot of them actually rise over the 200-mark.

Too good to be true. I don't believe a legal service can charge 1/10-1/20 of what eMusic, Amazon MP3 and iTunes charge.

Most probably it is illegal. You can find lots of complains about the quality of music, irresponsive support, being to able to access account after paying with a credit card.

[placebo]

i certainly know mp3panda. many maany mp3panda clones exist. they all look alike and offer about the same, and they work the same: you use your credit card to transfer ("pay") for example US$20.00 to your mp3panda account from which balance then song tracks are deducted. Sort of prepaid card principle

All those sites/companies/servers have their "location" in Russia and, from what i've understood, although they dont have direct license agreements with the record companies&labels, they do have a national license (issued by the Russian government) for selling the song tracks within their country. (That means that in theory the Russian government has made some deals/license agreements with the record companies lol ).

In other words, a customer in R. who pays and downloads from mp3panda does not do anything illegal (with respect to R. legislation), and vice versa, the R. company (here: mp3panda) does not do anything illegal either (with respect to R. legislation) since they do have "the R. license to sell them" (no matter how legally or illegally the website acquired the songs in the first place!).

At the same time, it is illegal for international customers to buy/download mp3panda tracks .. simply because mp3panda doesnt own any license to sell the songs to international customers. That is being prohibited by R. legislation (or R. governmental licensing) and of course by the international record companies themselves.

This all sounds weird, wrong, confusing, complex and false. And i just call it the internet age.

And YES, mp3panda is big, good and ultracheap (and as safe/secure as other dealers from overseas) and i do recommend it .. if you cant find your desired albums elsewhere (google, torrent, rapidshare)!!