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Pirated music discs see global boom
Wednesday, June 12 2002
by Sheila McDonald


The proliferation of recordable CD technology is fuelling a boom in sales of
pirated music discs, according to research from a music industry trade
association.









The report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry shows
that global sales of pirate music discs rose nearly 50 percent to an all-time
high of 950 million units in 2001. The total world music pirate market was
estimated to be worth USD4.3 billion, a slight increase on the previous year. 





One factor influencing the boom is the availability of cheap, portable equipment
capable of making high-quality duplicates, especially for recordable CDs (CD-R).
This means that large-scale manufacturing plants are not the only targets for
enforcement officials anymore, as smaller-scale, "garage" operations can be
hidden virtually anywhere.





Commercial CD-R pirate sales tripled in 2001 to 450 million units. The largest
manufacturing operations are based in South East Asia, which along with Latin
America saw a major increase in the number of discs seized last year.



 

The leader board of countries where more than half of music sold is pirated
includes Greece, China, Egypt and Kenya; Greece also topped charts released
earlier this month for top offenders in software piracy.



The figures from IFPI show that countries including Ireland, the UK, the US and
Japan all had less than 10 percent domestic piracy last year. 



IFPI's chairman Jay Berman said people must stop seeing piracy as a "victimless
crime," noting that it harms everyone from the artists themselves to the
development of local music. Piracy also nurtures organised crime, he said.



"Very often the money that is paid for pirate CDs will be channelled into the
drugs trade, money laundering or other forms of serious organised criminal
activity," the report noted. 



The value of music piracy quoted in the report included only commercial music
piracy, not downloadable music from the Internet or CD-burning by consumers. On
the Internet side, IFPI said its affiliated groups helped remove more than 1,000
unauthorised peer-to-peer music services last year. But as of May, 2002, there
were still an estimated 3 million users and 500 million files available on
remaining peer-to-peer sites worldwide.





More information is available from the IFPI Web
site.