A study has shown that street-corner peddlers of pirated compact discs sold more than 1 billion illegally copied CDs last year, turning a shady black-market trade into an estimated US$4.5 billion industry.

According to global trade body the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry, more than one out of every three music compact discs bought by consumers in 2003 was pirated.

And at US$4.5 billion, the pirated music market represents nearly 15 percent of the worth of the global record music market.

Piracy is cited as a main culprit for the US$32 billion industry's four-year slump in recorded music sales.

(CRI July 23, 2004)