Misguided RIAA

The BBC has an article containing (gasp) facts that demonstrate how the RIAA's attacks on individual file-swappers are misguided and will be ineffectual - Stopping the pop-swappers. Additionally, if they released fully-functional CDs the consumers would be more liable to buy.

In America and the rest of the world the biggest culprit in falling music sales is large-scale CD piracy by organised crime.

[...]

The pirate CD market is now so big, $4.6bn (�2.86bn), it is "of greater value than the legitimate music market of every country in the world, except the USA and Japan".

In some countries it is hard to find legitimately produced CDs. Ninety percent of CDs in China, for instance, are pirate copies.

[...]

According to the RIAA's own figures, over the last two years the US music industry has produced 25% fewer CDs.

The peak of production was in 1999 when 38,900 individual titles were released. But by 2001 this was down to 27,000.