Taking a UK perspective on all this, and it's not all groovy I'm afraid. According to the BPI, commercial music piracy in the UK last year was worth an estimated £76.9 million, that's a 31% increase in volume and 37% increase in value on 2003. That rate of growth is ten times greater than that of the legitimate music industry, and 15 times greater than the average global growth in music piracy. Not good. The rise, presumably, is because developments in technology mean it is getting ever cheaper and ever easier to make decent quality copies of CDs to flog on at car boot sales and the like.
Commenting on the gloomy stats BPI boss Peter Jamieson told CMU: "While internet piracy may have stolen the headlines, commercial piracy is rising at an alarming rate. Every day of the week in pubs, car boot sales and markets around the country pirates are stealing the livelihoods of performers, songwriters and the companies who invest in them."
The BPI say an increased investment in anti-piracy efforts and collaborations with other intellectual property agencies have helped the trade association score some crucial victories in the fight against commercial piracy, but they urged an increased national effort by police and trading authorities to help combat the rising music piracy problem.
BPI Director of Anti-Piracy David Martin said: "We continue to be impressed and grateful for the hard work put in day-in, day-out by police and trading standards officers to combat this crime. But the alarming growth in music piracy suggests there is still a lot more to be done. A piecemeal approach means that if we drive the pirates out of one area, they simply move somewhere where enforcement is not so rigorous. Given the clear links between music piracy and other forms of crime, it is in everybody's interest that the authorities come down hard on copyright theft."
Jamieson concluded: "We as an industry are doing all we can to deal with this problem, but we need an effective national enforcement strategy for IP crime so that criminals cannot exploit the gaps between police and trading standards."