AllofMP3 slams 'capricious' Visa and Mastercard

Found on The Register on Thursday, 19 October 2006
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Mediaservices, the owner of the controversial music download site AllofMP3, will pursue "every avenue" to overturn the decisions of Visa and Mastercard to stop processing payments to the company.

In a statement today, the Russian company said the blacklisting was "arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory". Visa and Mastercard had no authority to judge the legality of AllofMP3's services, and their "determination that the company's activities were illegal is patently erroneous and without legal merit", it said. "AllofMP3 has not been found by any court in the world to be in violation of any law...To disqualify AllofMP3 based on a payment processing company’s whim is irresponsible and sets a bad precedence."

AllofMP3 claims Visa has "misinterpreted the new copyright laws because they do not require AllofMP3 to alter its business model. The new copyright laws do not prevent the online sale of music".

It would be quite interesting to know if this decision was made by Vista/Mastercard themselves, or if they were pushed by the music industry like in the case of Piratebay. Nevertheless, as long as AllofMP3 is officially legal, those credit card companies have no reason to stop doing business with them. Come and see the violence inherent in the system.