Record firms reel from CD piracy

The record giants may have tamed Napster but they are still losing out to internet and offline CD pirates, a new report has claimed.

Sales of pirate CDs in the UK have soared to a third of all CDs sold in the country, and the black market is now estimated to be worth around £3bn, according to a report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

The surge reflects a global trend of a 25 per cent increase, with pirate goods now accounting for more than one in three sales. This is the result, said the IFPI, of the increased use of low-cost illegal CD-R copying.

The report claimed pirate sales of CDs and CD-R discs rose from 510 million units in 1999 to an estimated 640 million units in 2000. It added that the internet is a virtually 100 per cent pirate medium.

Rupert Perry, senior VP of EMI Recorded Music and chairman of IFPI's European Regional Board said: "The music business invests billions of dollars in new artists. We cannot compete with pirates who do not assume any risk and who do not compensate the artists who have created the music in the first place. "That is why fighting piracy, both in the physical world and on the internet, remains a top priority of out industry."

Organised crime in Italy, eastern Europe, Russia and Asia have developed techniques for producing good quality pirate CDs for a mere 30p, massively undercutting the industry.

Launching its annual report in London, the IFPI chairman, Jay Berman, said pirates were also becoming much more brazen, particularly in Latin America.

Apparently, Mexican bootleggers have set up their own official federation and run an awards ceremony giving prizes to the artists who have sold the most pirate CDs, he said.