HIRED killers have forced the record industry to shut a key pirate-busting office in South China. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, the record industry body that fights CD piracy, has closed its branch office in Canton because the CD pirates have taken out contracts on the office staff.
The IFPI says it 鈥渉eard from reliable sources that hit men had been contracted on behalf of CD factories鈥�. The director-general, Nic Garnett, says: 鈥淲e are looking to the Chinese authorities to provide us with the necessary security to carry on our operations.鈥�
China is the largest market in the world for music piracy, but so far the pirates have mostly made low-tech cassettes. Now the Chinese are moving up-market and into CD technology
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China has 30 pressing plants, a tenth of the world total, producing 75 million music CDs, computer CD-ROMs and video CDs a year. The IFPI believes that 45 million of these discs are pirate pressings, copied from legitimate releases. They are sold in Chinese street markets for a few dollars.
In October 1995, after two years of negotiation with the IFPI and under pressure from the US, the Chinese government agreed to adopt an anti-piracy system. All China鈥檚 CD factories must now etch a unique number into the moulds they use to press discs. So every CD should carry a mark which identifies the factory that made it. Since 1 November it has been illegal to sell any CD in China without this code. Illegal CDs can be confiscated by the Chinese authorities.
鈥淲e have clearly reached a critical point if the pirates have to resort to these measures,鈥� says Garnett, who has promised to reopen the office as soon as the authorities can guarantee his staff鈥檚 safety.
In Europe, most pirate CDs are marked 鈥淢ade in Germany鈥� although they actually come from Italy, often through Northern Ireland. The IFPI suspects links with the Mafia and both Loyalist and Republican paramilitary groups. But after the largest pirate plant, based near Milan, was raided recently, Bulgaria is emerging as the second largest pirate source for the European market.
The IFPI is also trying to hit the pirates by blocking their supplies of raw material. CDs are pressed from polycarbonate plastics. Only five companies in the world produce polycarbonate with the purity and thermal and optical characteristics needed for CDs.