Here is a surprising statistic. One in three CDs sold is a pirate CD!
News Source: Jamaica Observer
It's a worldwide problem. Pirate CDs are especially rampant in Pakistan, Brazil, China, Russia, Taiwan and Barbados. In Barbados the problem is so bad that just last week music producers vowed not to release new music until the issue of piracy is addressed.
Music piracy is hardly new, but in the Digital Age, it has escalated to unprecedented levels. Digital technology allows CDs to be copied in mass amounts with no loss of audio quality, while high-resolution scanners and colour laser printers do the same for packaging.
The international industry has met the digital problem, with a digital solution - crippled CDs. This rather inelegant solution is supposed to prevent CDs from being "ripped", while allowing them to work in regular CD players. But buyers beware.
As early as 2001, BMI released CDs featuring Midbar's Cactus Data Shield, which added bits of noise intended to be overlooked by standard CD players, but it completely confounded CD ROM drives. This led to several consumer complaints that the CD would not play in car and other players.
Enter Macrovision, they gobbled up Midbar and released SafeAudio, which added more errors. And once again as the industry fumbled with solutions, consumers reported that copied CDs damaged speakers and other equipment when played. Competitors SunnComm then tried their hand with Media Max CD-3, but this also had compatibility problems.
Adding insult to injury, some anti-piracy methods were easily thwarted, either with a felt tip marker or one "shift" keystroke.
Then there is watermarking, the adding of an audio single that can identify the audio track as copy, but "good ears" can hear the difference affecting the quality of the track. Another failed effort.
All these failures have come at a high price for the international music industry; higher production costs and low consumer support. The Jamaican music industry can ill afford these costs, so a fairly effective low-tech method is employed; imprisonment of offenders.
Inspector Winston Lindo of the Organised Crime Investigation Unit (OCIU) reported that over 20 persons had been prosecuted for the sale of pirated CDs.
"Stiff penalties such as six months at hard labour or $100,000 fines are strong deterrents to repeat offenders," Lindo offered.
Working with local record labels and distributors, Lindo and his team travel the island issuing warnings, arresting retailers and confiscating bootleg CDs. It seems that counterparts in Barbados are not as tenacious in their efforts to stamp out piracy.
"Here the concern is that despite fines of up to US$250,000, charges are thrown out in the early stages because they have been badly worded by the prosecution," explained Santia Bradshaw of Charlton Chambers Attorney and Headline Publishing in Barbados.
The Concerned Music/Video Producers & Retailers of Barbados Association insist that their well-timed strike is not intended to disrupt Crop Over, but rather an expression of their frustration. The Nation newspaper reported that "a man was arrested and fined $50 under the Markets and Slaughter Houses Act, after being found without a licence and in possession of over 700 CDs for sale", leading the group to refer to the police as ignorant of copyright laws. A claim the police firmly dismiss as "rubbish".
Whatever the outcome, the debate has certainly spawned new life and with declining record sales all over the world, recovering losses from piracy will be a key issue for both the international and regional music industries.
