RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

Pirate-forgers engage in pure forgery, true theft and fraud. They make copies of records or cassettes on sale commercially and sell them at a lower price. This is beyond the pale. A copying machine does not even cost as much as a modest automobile, and it can turn out re-recordings at the rate of 40-50 cassettes per hour, In the Far and Middle East, modern machines make up to 500 pirate cassettes an hom. It is reckoned that 80% of the Arab music on sale in France comes from pirate sources. The National Guild of Phonograph and Audio-Visual Publishers (S.N.E.P.A.) is plain; ”Pirates exist as a parasitic affair at the ехреше of the professionals. Their activity is an ongoing form of economic crime. Article 2 of the Convention on protection of phonogram producers from unauthorized reproduction of their phonograms cannotbe reiterated enough. Itstates: Each signatory state undertakes to protect phonogram producers that are-nationals of the signatory states from reproduction without the producer’s permission. Likewise from the importation of such copies when they are produced for the purpose of public sale, and from the sale of these copies to the pubiic”. PIRACV ON A WORLD SCALE France is not an isolated case. ”Piracy is the biggest problem in the world gramophone record industry. Some progress has been made in England and the USA, but in the rest of the world the picture is pretty gloomy.” This was the message delivered at the opening of the International Music Industry Conference (IMIC 78) held in Venice. Seven professionals in this field, who are at the same time leading experts, reported on piracy in the USA, England, Italy, France and Asia under the subject-title ”Piracy the Cancer is Spreading”. Italian Minister, Carlo Pastorino, the emissary of the host country’s Premier, said in his introductory

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