It's back again. The seemingly never-ending speculation about AllofMp3 and its entanglement with Russia's desire to join the World Trade Organization. This time there's some evidence of the validity of those claims, and a little bit of light shed on when AllofMp3 might be gone for good.

A document released by the US trade representative to Russia clearly spells out that AllofMp3 has been and still remains a concern for US trade officials, and lays out a time-line within which Russia is expected to act against the rouge music download site.

According to PC Magazine, "Russia said it would [...] act by June 1, 2007 to take action and prevent rights societies from taking action without consent of the rights holders themselves; AllofMP3.com claims it holds licenses from the Russian Licensing Societies, including the Federation of Rights Holders for Collective Management of Copyright with Respect to the Use of Musical Works in Interactive Regime (FAIR) and the Russian Organization on Collective Management of Rights of Authors and Other Right Holders in Multimedia, Digital Networks & Visual Arts (ROMS)."

We've heard claims like this before. Frankly, it's a little disconcerting that VISA seems to have more control over international piracy rings than the Russian authorities. We first declared AllofMp3 to be a walking dead-man back in February of 2005. Almost two years on it remains the Energizer Bunny of international piracy, selling tunes for pennies and allegedly forwarding payments to the Russian ROMS royalty overseers, who've been uncooperative with the record labels and have no authority to grant the licenses on which AllofMp3 bases its legal standing.

So, now you have it on good authority, AllofMp3 will be no more as of 6/1/2007. We swear. Kinda. Well, most likely. We think.

[via PC Mag]