What drives the growth of CD-R piracy?
Organised CD-R piracy spread across the globe in 2001, and particularly in Latin America, North America and Western Europe. The chief reason for this is the widespread availability of cheap CD-R replication equipment and high-speed burners. This has sharply lowered the barriers to entry for commercial pirates. A typical commercial pirate operation now comprises rows of high-speed CD burner towers stored in a garage or CD-R laboratory . This switch to CD-R has created several new problems for the music industry: CD-R operations are more numerous, more concealed and portable than CD plant operations Increased pirating of local music. Where larger CD plants concentrate on pirating music by major international artists that they can export, smaller scale CD-R based operations have captured the market for domestic artists, sometimes up-and-coming or newly established acts A reduction in the average prices of pirated discs, since pirate music sold on CD-R tends to be slightly cheaper than the
