Slav to the music
Ahhhh, the Great Musical Cockblock of '07 is finally over. For the fortunate audiophiles who don't live in a scoldy Nordic country, allow me to explain: Last October, almost all of the Internet service providers here in Denmark put a block on allofmp3.com, the generous, WTO-frustrating Internet music store that sells entire albums for the cost of a song on iTunes. Trying to access the site from a Danish computer gives you this message:
"Ved Københavns fogedrets kendelse af 25. oktober 2006 er Tele2 A/S blevet pålagt at hindre vore kunders adgang til www.allofmp3.com, som efter IFPI's opfattelse formidler ulovligt kopieret musik."
Which more or less means 'Nice try, bro'. I don't really understand how this ban came about, and why the ISPs capitulated so easily. I mean, I can't yank a 320 kbps version of 'Winds of Change' off the Inter-nyet but I can still be subjected to this dude?
Anyway, this little Scandygram underestimates the Internet's neverending, hydra-like ability to get around regulations, especially when free shit is involved. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: musicmp3.ru.
Like everything ending in '.ru', the site is of dubious legality and full of delicately composed English like "We are starting an unexampled program!" and "iron nerve customer support." They appear to have taken the entire Allofmp3 archive, and new albums are popping up every day like tuberculosis in Siberia. They don't take credit cards yet, but they do give you an opportunity to explore the exciting world of Russian PayPal services (Nyet-banking, maybe? You can tell I'm loving this).
So: My long musical winter is finally starting to melt. I can rejoin my pretentious indie brethren in endless meadows of it-might-as-well-be-free music and rejoice in discovering new twinkly Scand-pop and embarrassing British flamboyance without having to resort to MySpace. I forgive you, Russia.
