BMG Germany recently tried to stop this piracy by introducing into the market a copy-protected compact disc. They sited a sharp decline in music sales due to people using their computers to copy and burn discs. Matthias Immel, head of product coordination and new media at BMG Germany, said, "Music piracy caused a 9.8 percent slump in sales during the first six months of 1999 over the same period in 1998." (Citing figures from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. )
The debut was flawed and unwelcome. It seems that consumers had a hard time playing the discs on certain types of CD players or in their cars. Of approximately 100,000 CD's sold, 4% were returned. BMG used the number one selling band in Germany, Him, to experiment with and now regrets their decision. Immel said that he didn't want customers to be upset and that if they'd foreseen any problems with the format, they would never have shipped the copy-protected CD's.
There's a buzz in the music industry right now about what to do with piracy issues. Some say that enforcing anti-piracy laws and pricing music more fairly are better alternatives than reformatting the conventional CD. There is also copyright-protection legislation brewing. Most notably, the Secure Digital Music Initiative, which has been under development but not yet come to fruition.
Better get your music the way you want it now before someone changes the rules.
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