Pirate CD seizures double in US

'N Sync's latest CD uses devices to make copying harder

Seizures of pirate CDs in the US have more than doubled in the first half of this year.

Figures released by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) showed that seizures of counterfeit recordable compact discs (CD-Rs) had risen by 133% over the same period in 2000.

Police found and then destroyed more than 1.2 million counterfeit CD-Rs and helped shut down almost 9,000 online music sales.

The RIAA said that its anti-piracy unit had also searched 34 CD manufacturing centres and seized more than 600 CD-R "burners" during the period - equivalent to the total for the whole of 2000.

The first half of the year also saw an 89% increase in arrests related to music piracy, with the total rising to 1,762.

Struggle

But the RIAA said it can not tell how much pirated music is still available in the market.

RIAA president Hilary Rosen promised increased co-operation with federal and regional law enforcement groups and more government lobbying in the association's struggle with music pirates.

Many computers are now capable of copying CDs

Frank Creighton, the RIAA's anti-piracy specialist, said: "We recognise that in order to keep up with the expanding CD-R piracy problem, we need to work hand in hand with those charged with enforcing intellectual property laws."

The apparent rise in CD-copying has been overshadowed by the music industry's wrangles with internet piracy.

But many music industry analysts feel that CD copying poses the greater threat to industry revenues.

'Mass CD-burning'

Keith Jopling, director of market research at the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), recently told the BBC's Business Today: "We have seen global music sales slowing down, at the same time the demand for all the media required for CD-burning, the hardware and software, has skyrocketed.

"So we think it is probably some kind of across the board change, which is probably partly the economy and partly this mass CD-burning trend," he said.

But the RIAA has continued its efforts to stop internet piracy, and reported that in the first half of 2001 it had shut down more than 8,700 online sales of music that it deemed illegal - a fourfold increase over last year.