Professional piracy rocketing warns BPI

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 29 Jul 2004 at 14:47

Professional piracy is rocketing, according to the British Phonographic Institution (BPI), with profits from counterfeit CDs soaring to £56.1mn in the UK alone.

The figure represents a 13 per cent increase over last year's profits and by volume constitutes 4.2 per cent of legal sales, which rose just 2.1 per cent year on year.

BPI Chairman Peter Jamieson said, 'Let no one be in any doubt of the seriousness of these figures. Though illegal filesharing has grabbed the headlines for much of this year, on market stalls and at car boot sales around the country criminals are ripping off artists, they are ripping off the people who invested in the music - the record companies - and ultimately they are ripping off the consumer. Stealing the music of today damages the music of tomorrow.'

Despite the more than six fold increase of pirate over legal CDs, the BPI says the UK music industry is performing well, as the biggest exporter of music beneath the US.

But many of the counterfeits flooding the market are from abroad. The IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Institutions) lists the ten most productive countries for counterfeit software as Brazil, China, Mexico, Paraguay, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand and the Ukraine.

Even so, one of the UK's most prolific counterfeiters was sentenced last month to three and a half years in jail. Police believed his 13-year career trafficking counterfeit CDs netted him a personal fortune of up to £15mn.

The pirate CDs are easily manufactured using 'basic home PC equipment', according to the BPI.