Global music official says Russia must tackle music piracy

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia must crack down on its enormous bootleg music market, the head of the global music industry trade body said Tuesday, but the country's economy minister warned that the problem could not be fixed quickly. At an anti-piracy conference, John Kennedy, president of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, called on Russian authorities to quash the illicit industry, which is second in the world only to China's.

Kennedy said Russian pirates pump fake CDs to markets in 27 countries and have the capacity to churn out 700 million discs a year - eight times the number of legal discs sold in Russia last year. Two-thirds of the music CDs in Russia are counterfeit, he said.

"For all of Russia's intentions of joining the WTO, it appears to an outsider that enforcement of intellectual property rights is a low priority," he told the conference, which was hosted by the U.S. Ambassador to Russia.

Despite a fractional improvement on 2005, bootleg music worth $400 million was sold in Russia last year, according to the IFPI, and intellectual property rights violations are cited as a key impediment to Russia joining the World Trade Organization.

The number of Russian websites offering music downloads for a few cents or even free was a sign that authorities weren't ready to meet the challenges of the music industry's newest marketplace, Kennedy said.

"Unfortunately Russia's unhealthy tradition of music piracy lives on in the digital era," he said, citing the example of the allofmp3.com, which offers tracks for a 10th of the price of world music downloading leader iTunes. Several lawsuits have been launched against the website, but it continues operating. Its owners argue they pay due royalties and are violating no laws.

Economy Minister German Gref lamented, however, that it will take time to tackle the problem. "It is apparently impossible to achieve quick results. If someone said that in the course of two-three years we could solve this problem, I would be doubtful," Gref told the conference.

He added that the counterfeiters often enjoyed impunity with local authorities. "It is closely linked to the effectiveness of the authorities in general, the way the authorities function ... the structures that produce counterfeit goods get their protection from the heads of local authorities."

The Canadian Press, 2007