Some major international music companies have drawn a bead on a Russian CD factory that they say is flooding the market with illegal products. In what is considered the first action against a manufacturer, EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Arista Records are filing lawsuits. Russobit-Soft, the Moscow-based CD factory, is alleged by them to be manufacturing and distributing counterfeit CDs by artists such as Destiny's Child, Michael Jackson and Westlife. Initially they are seeking damages of $ 1.4 million.
It is the first time the industry has filed a civil claim against a manufacturing plant. The Russobit-Soft plant has production capacity for 2.2m discs per month, but its management claimed it did not have any production records for allegedly pirated CDs. The legal action follows a sharp increase in music piracy over the past three years, with millions of tracks being downloaded from the internet and pirate factories exporting CDs. According to the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), representing 1,500 music companies, the pirate market is now worth more than $ 4.6bn (€3.7bn, £2.6bn) a year. The IFPI claims the number of CD plants in Russia has more than doubled since 2000, with factories exporting pirate CDs to some 26 countries. Jay Berman, IFPI chairman, said: "Copyright piracy is a critical problem in Russia and this action opens up a new front in our industry's efforts to tackle it. "Russia has the potential to become a highly successful music market, but first it is essential to bring its spiralling levels of piracy and copyright infringement under control." |
This isn't chump change and the association of music entities are not going to stop there. They're going to go after other manufacturers that they say are also up to no good as well. Hey, go ahead that's who you ought to be going after anyway. It's easier to digest sales loss figures resulting from big time manufacturers flooding the market with cut rate goods, than ordinary citizens with a PC downloading an MP3. You can read the full article here. What are the chances that this will result in an admission and shutdown of such activity, let alone a payment? Feel free to discuss this in our Music Downloads, P2P and Legal Issues Forum.
Source: Financial Times
