"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,” said IFPI chairman and
CEO, John
Kennedy. “It is no longer acceptable for governments to turn a
blind eye, or to regard piracy as merely a small irritation to
society.”
The report focuses on music piracy in its physical sense – the
creation of discs in vast quantities either in high-speed burning
laboratories or in traditional CD plants – rather than by virtue of
illegal file-sharing on the internet.
It reveals that sales of pirate music exceeded the legitimate
market in a record 31 countries in 2004, and lists ten top priority
countries where piracy levels are at unacceptable levels and where
additional government action is needed. These are: Brazil, China,
India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, Paraguay, Russia, Spain and
Ukraine.
Top of the list is Paraguay, with a reported 99% piracy rate.
Next is China (85%) and Indonesia (80%). Spain, the worst European
country on the list, has a reported piracy rate of 24%.
Four other countries – Bulgaria, Canada, Korea and Taiwan – are
highlighted as a special focus for the international recording
industry.
But the report also commends some governments for stepping up
enforcement efforts, revealing that despite the music pirate market
generating $4.6 billion last year, growth in disc piracy has
actually slowed to 2% – its lowest level in five years.
Industry and government enforcement efforts have also achieved
results. The past year saw record levels of pirate production taken
out of action, while seizures of commercial CD burning equipment in
2004 were twice the levels of 2003.
According to the report, industry anti-piracy efforts, backed by
forensics and working closely with agencies such as Interpol,
helped in the decommissioning of CD plant lines with the capacity
to supply 380 million discs, or half the entire disc market for
music in the US. There were also record seizures of CD burners,
which doubled in 2004 to 28,350.
Elsewhere, UK music industry trade group, the British
Phonographic Industry, released its own figures showing that while
the UK has one of the lowest rates of music piracy in the world –
3.9% of legitimate business – thevalue of thecommercial piracy
market last year grew 37% in value and 31% in volume compared to
2003.
BPI
chairman Peter Jamieson said, “While internet piracy may have
stolen the headlines, commercial piracy is rising at an alarming
rate.”
"We as an industry are doing all we can to deal with this
problem, but we needan effective national enforcement strategy for
IP crime so that
criminals cannot exploit the gaps between police and trading
standards," he added.
