Among the highlights, pirate music distributors are increasingly manufacturing and selling high-quality product that closely resembles legitimate CDs while large criminal enterprises are becoming increasingly involved in the piracy racket, illegally burning massive numbers of blank CDs with music from today’s most popular artists.
"The practice and trade of music piracy have become more sophisticated, cunning and connected to organized crime," said Brad Buckles, Executive Vice President of Anti-Piracy. "Working with law enforcement officials across the country, we continue to develop and implement multifaceted strategies to respond to these emerging threats to artists, songwriters, record labels and others in the music community."
The RIAA reported a 58 percent increase in seizures of counterfeit CDs, the authentic CD look-alikes with high-quality artwork and packaging that make the product appear legitimate. Working together, local law enforcement agencies and RIAA investigators seized 1.2 million counterfeit discs in 2004. This pirate product is increasingly traced back to smaller CD copying plants. The growing number of these smaller-sized facilities over the past few years has created excess production capacity, and some unethical businesses have diverted this excess capacity to the production of high-quality pirate product.
Related
- (2006 Annual Piracy Report) Setting the IFPI Record Straight
- UK a new piracy hotbed
- RIAA Extends Anti-Piracy Campaign
- RIAA Submits International Piracy Report To U.S. Government
- Music Pirate Found Guilty of Criminal Copyright Infringement
