We promised you piracy news, and when do we ever not deliver on a promise (no, don't answer that question)? The International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry launched their latest piracy report yesterday and it made for gloomy reading, unless you count the fact that in percentage terms the piracy sector grew less in 2003 than in 2002 as positive (down from 14% to 4%) - but it still grew. In fact a third of all CDs sold around the world are now pirated copies, costing the music industry $4.5 billion a year.
The report highlighted the ten countries it reckons harbours the most prolific piracy sectors, and the IFPI will now put pressure on those countries' governments to take action. The list includes Mexico, Russia, Thailand, Taiwan, Ukraine and Spain.
Launching the report IFPI boss Jay Berman told reporters: "Commercial music piracy dominates large swathes of the world's music markets, despite an encouraging slowdown in growth in 2003. This illegal trade is funding organised crime, fuelling widespread corruption and costing governments hundreds of millions of dollars in lost taxes. The responsibility is now on governments - and especially in the 10 priority countries - to act decisively against the problem."
The IFPI are confident the decline in growth of the piracy sector is in part down to their various anti-piracy efforts - which include forensic techniques that match CDs with specific manufacturing plants and the use of Interpol's new Fighting Fund set up to tackle intellectual property theft. While acknowledging that piracy "would never completely disappear", Berman says that if the various governments assist them in their ongoing work he is confident the piracy problem can be reduced in the next few years.