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My god, from reading this thread you'd think this identifier is the work of satan or John Ashcroft (redundant?). People, before posting the standard knee-jerk reaction to something, why not do a little research.

This is a harmless number & metadata scheme that is intended to identify electronically distributed content since the existing identifiers (e.g. UPC and ISRC) have limitations that don't satisfy the needs of content owners, publishers, and retailers. I was involved in the project so I know first hand this has nothing to do with P2P or consumer tracking.

• IFPI - The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
• NCB - Nordic Copyright Bureau
  Quote from the site:
  The transfer of rights to NCB is organised in the following way: rights owners in the Nordic countries and the Baltic States transfer all their rights to the national performing rights society. This society administers the performing rights and transfers the mechanical rights to NCB. Thus, NCB represents virtually all copyrighted music in the Nordic and Baltic areas in connection with recording and the manufacture and distribution of copies of recordings.
• DMF danish site - Danish Musician Union. some english info
• DAF - Danish Artist Union

• MUF Danish site - Multimedia Union, which represents makers and distributors of computer and console games
• FDV - Union of Danish Video distributors, which by large is local branches of the major movie companies or their danish representative

  So this is basically a group representing many, if not all copyright holders for the material in question

There are 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes bought and used this year for copying music in comparison to 213 Million prerecorded audio media. This means the owners are only being paid for 46 per cent of the musical content. For a comparison: In 1998 almost 90% of all audio media was paid for.

Let's take a look at those numbers. I'll use US sales figures, supplied by the RIAA (The European data, provided by IFPI are not freely available to the public).

If we look at US sales in 1998, we see that CD sales had just increased to 847 million units. The folks at EMI claim that this number is 90% of all audio media paid for, so there were 941 million CDs listened to (941=847/.9).

Now, lets look at the numbers for 2002. In the first half of 2002, there have been 398.1 Million units sold (which is down 10% from last year). Let's assume that Christina Agulara and Eminem's new albums do well, and that the second half of 2002 is as good as the first half. This gives us a total of 796.2 million units for 2002. Now, if we assume that these represent only 46% of all purchased audio media, that means that music fans are listening to 1.73 Billion CDs worth of music (1731=796.2/.46).

So, to sum up,according to EMI, music demand has skyrocketed 183% over the last three years (183=1731/941*100).

Who is making all this great music? All I hear is crap on the radio. Why is everyone complaining about the quality of music these days when in fact the public demand for music has nearly doubled in just a few years?

No wonder I'm swarmed by homeless record executives trying to wash my windshield at every intersection. Won't someone think of the Record Executives?!?

"Connections between organized South American pirates and Middle Eastern terrorists groups: discs carrying extremist propaganda have been found in Argentina, Mauritius, Pakistan and Paraguay that come from the same source as much of the illegally-produced music in these regions. Other extremist or terrorist groups, for example in Northern Ireland, are partly funded by music piracy."

If the RIAA has any success in the US, then the IFPI can try the same thing with some member of parliament.

There was an interview with the legal representation for the IFPI on the BBC yesterday that I was listening to out the corner of my ear, discussing the "fall" in industry profits. The phrase that caught my attention was "we are going after the people that run these [P2P] networks, and the ISPs that allow access to them".

This sounds a hell of a lot like we can expect to see, and be subjected to, things like this from our ISPs. Not a happy thought.

The DMCA (or "H.R. 2281, WIPO Copyright Treaties Implementation Act" is coming EVERYWHERE(!)

See here.

the DMCA is not the simple invention of plutocratic Americans - it has been snuck into more than 30 countries.

Also see: here

The IFPI is an unbrella group of national recording industry movements. RIAA is the US member of the IFPI.

Your ignorance is hardly a good reason for nationalistic indignation.

Get upset at the fact the US might consider sanctions rather than the fact an international group isn't based in DC.

--
"It is a mistake to seek in fantasies the key to concrete behavior" - Simone De Beauvoir, The Second Sex

Do you live in Canada? I do, and I haven't bought any CDs there in a long time. Why? Too damn expensive. They were selling CDs at a buck or two more than FutureShop, WalMart, CDWarehouse, etc.

CD sales are up over the last 5 years. Even if you consider that they are down somewhat this year you have to consider the overall economic climate.

Sams went under becuase of poor business decisions, not becuase of Napster. Quoting some clown who brings his laptop to parties doesn't change that.

IFPI, by the way, is affiliated with the RIAA.

IFPI, by the way, is affiliated with the RIAA.

From our standpoint, we are designing the software for the 99 percent of the people who don't want to steal the music but instead (want to) use it for whatever means--for whatever personal use that's allowed by the artist and the record label.

99% of the general populion don't want to make mp3s of their cds?

From CNET's stats, it seems like about 13 million people have downloaded Kazaa, and about another 20 million have downloaded Morpheus (not to mention various other file sharing programs talked about on /. here). Therefore I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that at least 10 million individuals out there are trading mp3s with software that your average Joe can use. In the year 2000, 2.5 billion CDs were sold (according to this link). Assuming that average Joe buys, say, a couple CDs a month (reasonabe?), this comes out to about 100 million average Joes buying cds each year. Using my super-human mathmatical capabilities, I figure about 10% of the general cd-purchasing population wish to make mp3s with their cds. He's an order of magnitude off! In physics or chemistry this is fine, but for the CEO of a business, isn't it a bit much?

This wouldn't work for several reasons:

1. Napster is a company based in the United States, and therefore is subject to U.S. law.

2. The Berne Convention. The existence of the Berne convention allows countries to pursue copyright infringement violations in other coutries.

3. The IFPI. A sort of international version of the RIAA. They recently busted a group of college students in Taiwan for music-swapping, and had their equipment seized.

I feel the need to clarify this a bit...
There is no such thing as arresting small-time copyright violators here in Belgium.

(1) Indeed there *was* a threat from the IFPI (www.ifpi.org: "IFPI is the organisation representing the international recording industry")
(2) But that threat was only to a small number (100) of users, who had received a warning before
(3) Everyone and his brother says IFPI is not able to identify these users unless they violated the privacy legislation
(4) And, most importantly: Marc Verwilghen, our minister of justice, has declared that the prosecution of small-time piracy has the very lowest priority. This places it, I think, just above cannabis use.

So the whole thing is just some FUD from IFPI.

I heard a few weeks ago an interview of Olivier Maeterlinck from IFPI, the organization of music producers (you know, those who make money with the music of other people).

Here in Belgium, they pay a guy to use napster and search copyrighted music. When he finds a track on a machine connected through a belgian ISP, he phones the ISP, gives the IP and asks the street adress. At the time of the interview, most ISP were cooperating but at least one refused, arguing that IFPI was not the police or a judicial authority.

So the IFPI people are really acting like a parallel police, using the money they earn from selling music to protect their business.

About the stupid comment on the story (Now if only the Belgian police would be so effective at arresting pedophiles..."), you should have said :

Now if the Belgian IFPI people would be so effective at tracking pedophiles ...

It is done the other way around.
Marcel Heymans (Director of the IFPI Belgium) goes online on Napster and tries to find music of Belgian artists. If he can download such music from your computer (and thus you are offering music to the community) then you get a warning.....and you go into his favorites ;p.
Next weeks he tries again and if he finds your computer offering again, you lose your account!
And yes, he likes it even more when it's a student. An example
It's that simple.

1. Simple piracy - is the unauthorised duplication of an original recording for commercial gain without the consent of the rights
   owner.
   
   
2. Counterfeits - are copied and packaged to resemble the original as closely as possible.
   
   
3. Bootlegs - these are the unauthorised recordings of live or broadcast performances.
   
   

1. Simple piracy - is the unauthorised duplication of an original recording for commercial gain without the consent of the rights
   owner.
   
   
2. Counterfeits - are copied and packaged to resemble the original as closely as possible.
   
   
3. Bootlegs - these are the unauthorised recordings of live or broadcast performances.