Pirate CD sales rises to $4.5Bln a year

LOS ANGELES (IFPI) - A study has shown that street-corner peddlers of pirated compact discs sold more than 1 billion illegally copied CDs last year, turning a shady black-market trade into an estimated $4.5 billion industry.

The worldwide pirate music business reportedly is worth $4.5 billion with 35 percent of all CDs sold being illegal copies, a music trade organization said.

The International Federation of Phonographic Industries, based in Zurich, Switzerland, has named the 10 worst countries for music piracy in an industry that now peddles up to 1.1 billion CDs annually, the study mentioned.

Mexico, Russia, Thailand, Taiwan, Ukraine, Spain and Pakistan are among the countries targeted, with China topping the list as the worst for production of illegal CDs.
This illegal trade is funding organized crime, fueling widespread corruption and costing governments hundreds of millions of dollars in lost taxes, said Jay Berman, IFPI chairman.
The responsibility is now on governments, and especially in the 10 priority countries, to act decisively against the problem, he said.
The growth rate for piracy has slowed, however, up 4 percent last year compared with 14 percent in 2002, an indication of effective crackdowns on the trade, the IFPI said.