"pirate CDs hurt the music more"

Really? I'm not totally convinced, myself. Sure, a hell of a lot of pirate CDs are shifted around the world, but a lot of the figures thrown around about how much it "costs" the music industry assume that everyone who spends, say, two quid on a fake CD would otherwise spend fifteen quid on a 'proper' CD - which, of course, isn't the case at all. The music industry is losing some money, but nothing like it claims to be. In fact, if you add together the millions spent by the various music trade associations, plus the sheer waste of police time and money thrown away on harrassing people at car boot sales and so on, and compared it with the true level of lost sales, they'd probably even each other out.

If I wanted to, I could buy just about any new release as a bootleg in Kuwait and Iraq. I didn't because most of it the new releases are crap, but many people are willing to spend that money to have the product immediately and cheaply. Many consumers will buy piratred copies because they are both cheap and convenient. Not everyone wants to spend the big money for the origianl product. THe law might be able to crack down on piracy in the US and the EU, but their will still be lots of pirated product being sold to the rest of the world. Not only that, in some countries, copyright laws do not exist, it isn't even illegal, so there is no worry. Piracy is just a way of meeting a demand at the buyer's price, notthe sellers. I don't condone it, but I understand why it happens.

I think p2p is still more of an issue--the pirate cd dealers in NYC have been largely shut down, as the street price for a music CD is now around $2---pirate DVD's are $5. The dealers are not willing to risk summonses and confiscation of their wares for a $2 sale. The record industry is in big trouble if they do not find a way to monetize downloads

I'd still say that pirate CDs do more economic harm worldwide than P2P.

In the article, it says the music industry in Israel loses $30 million a year because of pirate CDs. Obviously, it is inflated, but even if it were half that, it still would be more than the $2 million they spend on anti-piracy efforts.

The point is the music industry has been doing high-profile anti-p2p campaigns, but I haven't seen the same kind of education around pirate CDs.