The report says that music on-line is almost wholly a pirate medium. The IFPI closed down 15,000 web sites last year that contained 300,000 music files. The chairman of the IFPI, Jay Berman told FT.com, “it is difficult to make an assessment of either the value or the cost to us except to say that virtually all of the billions of downloads that occurred in 2000 were illegal.”
The IFPI believes that new legitimate on-line music services and any successful court cases against pirate music providers will help stop the criminal activities. Napster has seen a fall in downloads from 2.8 billion in February to 400,000 due to its high profile court appearances.
The IFPI has called for national governments to modernise laws concerning on-line piracy. In the EU, member states currently have 18 months to comply with a copyright directive that was adopted in April. This sets out grounds for pursuing internet pirates.