One in three music discs sold worldwide, “is an illegal copy, creating a US$4.6 billion music pirate market that destroys jobs, kills investment and funds organized crime”.
So says the Big Four record label cartel’s IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) in its Commercial Piracy Report 2005.
It is, of course, manifestly impossible for the IFPI to accurately gauge the extent to which counterfeits may or, as seems inreasingly more likely, may not be affecting the music industry’s indecently fat bottom line. In fact, the report should have been released under the Fiction category, as with all other IFPI ‘studies’
“A total of 1.2 billion pirate music discs were sold in 2004,” says the IFPI, failing to explain how it arrives at this figure.
However, given that the various entertainment and software cartel companies seem to use the same creative accounting techniques, it’s reasonable to conclude the IFPI does the same. [more @ www.mp3newswire.net]