While a lot of countries already suffer from protected audio CDs the The Association of Independent Music, whose members account for a quarter of the record market in Britain, is now also planning to copy protect most UK audio CDs.
While record sales in the UK went up 5% The AIM is still worried about digital music piracy. Besides the copy protection technology it is also working together with online music distributors:
Figures from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, released this week, blame a decline in record sales of 5 per cent to $33.7 billion in 2001 largely on "mass digital copying and the Internet", along with the general economic slowdown. |
Record sales in Britain were up 5 per cent, despite which AIM spokesman Sam Shemtob said the trade body viewed CD copying technology as a "plague of locusts" which is liable to decimate future sales.
To tackle this music piracy problem, AIM has signed deals with companies like OD2, Whipet and Napster which offer legitimate software downloads. It is also tackling the problem of ripped tracks appearing on MP3-sharing sites such as Morpheus at source by creating a steering group which will evaluate the various anti-copy CDs technologies available.
This group will negotiate the best terms under which labels may use copy-protection measures and consult with retailers in order to develop the best alternatives for the independent business.
While in the whole word record sales go down, and while in the UK record sales went up 5% they are still worried about digital music piracy.
Do they think UK consumers are morons and will only learn the coming time how to copy CDs and how to rip CDs and encode them to MP3 and share it on the internet ? Then wake up, they already know !
Source: TheRegister.co.uk
