Piracy Costs Music Business $4.5 Billion

LONDON -- Illegal music sales accounted for $4.5 billion during 2003, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) claimed Thursday.

The trade organisation, which represents the interests of more than 1,450 record companies around the world, estimates that a record 1.1 billion pirated CDs were sold globally last year, representing 35% of all music disc sales. But IFPI believes it is winning its battle against the pirates and claims the spread of piracy is waning.

Blaming piracy on "organized crime, government apathy and corruption", IFPI singled out 10 specific countries - 4 in Asia, 3 in Latin America and 3 in Europe - where wholesale anti-piracy offensives are most urgently needed.

Publishing its Commercial Piracy Report 2004, IFPI made a 4-point call to governments asking for: strong and up to date copy-right laws; proper deterrent sentencing of pirates; regulation of disc manufacturing; and commitment to prosecute copyright crime aggressively.

Naming and shaming 10 priority countries where it says governments urgently need to crack down on rampant illegal music sales, IFPI's report outlines new evidence of suspected involvement in piracy by government, judiciary and civil service employees.

The 10 rogue nations are: Brazil, China, Mexico, Pakistan, Paraguay, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand and Ukraine. In terms of value, the list is topped by China, where IFPI says the pirate market is worth nearly $600 million.

In a statement IFPI chairman/CEO Jay Berman said: "This illegal trade is funding organized crime, fuelling widespread corrup-tion 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."

Despite the record piracy figures, the situation would have been worse had it not been for IFPI's anti piracy investigators who, during the year, helped seize industrial scale CD-making equipment with the capacity to produce 300 million discs - equivalent to the legitimate CD markets of France and Germany combined.

Source: Gordon Masson @ Variety