BUSINESS
Music piracy costs billions
26-07-2004
by Craig Liddell
Music piracy remains a huge USD4.5 billion (EUR3.7 billion) illegal business driven by organised crime, government apathy, and corruption, according to new research.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) also found that a record 35 percent of all music discs sold worldwide are illegal copies, global sales of pirate music have hit another record at 1.1 billion discs annually, but the fake CD trade is spreading more slowly than in recent years because of stepped up enforcement efforts.
"Commercial music piracy dominates large swathes of the world's music markets, despite an encouraging slowdown in growth in 2003," IFPI Chairman and CEO, Jay Berman, said. "This illegal trade is funding organised crime, fuelling widespread corruption and costing governments hundreds of millions of dollars in lost taxes. It is destroying artist careers and music cultures, and robbing countries with high piracy rates of billions of dollars of investment they would otherwise enjoy."
Published on Monday, the recording industry's Commercial Piracy Report 2004 was released on behalf of more than 1,400 hundred record companies worldwide.
Global sales of illegal music discs rose 4 percent in 2003, according to the report, and the global average piracy rate increased to a record 35 percent. The rate of illegal to legal CDs sold also continues to increase. In 2000, one in five CDs sold worldwide was a pirate copy. In 2003 the ratio was one in three, and rising.
However, music disc piracy in 2003 grew at its slowest rate in four years, indicating that enforcement efforts by industry anti-piracy teams, and by some government enforcement agencies, are now having a significant impact.
There were record levels of disc and CD copying equipment seizures in 2003, which rose more than 10 percent to a record 56 million. The number of stampers netted -- the master copy used to press illicit CDs -- rose to more than 12,000, six times more than in the previous year.
Ten priority countries where wholesale anti-piracy offensives are most urgently needed were also highlighted. These include Brazil, China, Mexico, Pakistan, Paraguay, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand and Ukraine.
The report urges governments to adopt a four-pronged strategy of strong and up to date copyright laws, proper deterrent sentencing of pirates, regulation of disc manufacturing, and a commitment to prosecute copyright crime aggressively.
"The responsibility now is for governments -- and especially on the 10 priority countries our report names -- to act decisively against the problem," IFPI's Berman concluded. "This means proper enforcement, deterrent sentences against pirates, effective regulation of disc manufacturing and, above all, the political will to make sure real change happens."
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