Study: One-Third of CDs Are Pirated

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
June 23, 2005, 12:34 PM
According to a music industry group, one out of every three compact discs sold last year was pirated at a cost to the industry of $4.6 billion. There was some good news to be found in the report, as piracy only grew 2 percent year over year, which was the smallest increase in half a decade.

The report released by the International Federation of Phonographic Industries says that in 31 countries the amount of pirated music sold outweighs legal music. Also, in 2004 new countries have become problem areas for piracy, including Chile, Czech Republic, Greece, India and Turkey.


The IFPI decided to announced the results of the study in Spain, where street piracy has led to a drop in legitimate CD sales in the past three years by over 30 percent. Illicit discs now account for 24 percent of all sales in the country.

Spain will now join nine other countries as target areas to combat piracy in the coming year. However, Spain's piracy market is nowhere near that of China, with a 85 percent piracy rate and sales of some $411 million, or Paraguay, with a staggering piracy rate of 99 percent.

"Over the next few years governments and society are going to have to learn to take piracy more seriously - piracy not just of music, but in all its forms," IFPI chairman and CEO John Kennedy said. "It is no longer acceptable for governments to turn a blind eye, or to regard piracy as merely a small irritation to society."

Some companies are even considering pulling out of markets where piracy has become a large problem. Vivendi Universal says that such an action is a possibility, although it would not name any specifics. In any case, piracy is affecting the company's bottom line, and affecting operations.

where do they get their figures?

Uranus, I think

I thought something was funny during my last physical

"Some companies are even considering pulling out of markets where piracy has become a large problem."

Why don't they just go into a business they understand. Like loansharking.

Maybe they're taking into account foreign bootlegs like SonMay ripoffs of J-Pop? Last time I walked into any music store, my choices were new and used, and that's counting the little hole in the wall local businesses that could have anything if you looked hard enough.

I don't give a damn if they are or not!

"According to a music industry group, one out of every three compact discs sold last year was pirated at a cost to the industry of $4.6 billion."

and they know this because they are the one doing the selling of these "pirated disks". It makes it so much easier to avoid paying royalties to the artists.

"It is no longer acceptable for governments to turn a blind eye, or to regard piracy as merely a small irritation to society."

They're right. It's not merely a small irritiation anymore. I'm tired of having to buy poor quality pirated copies of crappy music in Chinatown for $5 when I should be able to buy good quality original copies of crappy music for $5 at my local cd store.

er, irritation...

Global music piracy worth $4.6 bln - study --Reuters take on things.

Third of CDs sold worldwide in 2004 was illegal copy: report --AFP's version

(Don't ya just love how things are "orchestrated"? ...how the media is played like a fiddle and sings in tune?)

OBIT

Soul Asylum Bassist Dies --E Online

EBay Encourages Sellers to Build Web Sites --AP

Groups Laud Yahoo for Closing Chat Rooms --AP

From the slippery slope dept.

(Due to spam and "booters" and wannabe hackers and malicious SOB's, the Yahoo chatrooms SUCK these days anyway. They may as well close them ALL, we won't be missing anything much..)

Want to hear some bald faced lies?

Windows Minus Media Player Not Big Seller --AP

But computer distributors and manufacturers are so far showing little interest in the new product, which compels consumers to choose their media player and download it from the Internet.

And that raises questions over the effectiveness of the media player component of the antitrust ruling.

"We don't see any interest at all in the product for the consumer," said Lionel Jarlan,

And to compound it:

"Jarlan pointed out that it is easy to uninstall Media Player from the complete version of Windows XP if clients want to avoid it."

lol

Cingular considering iTunes phone - sources --Reuters