In March 18 and 19th, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (FPI) held an anti-piracy conference on music piracy at the Interpol, General Secretariat headquarters in Lyons, France. Eighty representatives from 27 countries attended.
The anti-piracy conference is the annual seminar organized by IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide, including record company members and affiliated national groups. The conference was supported by INTERPOL’s Trafficking in Illicit Goods and Counterfeiting (TIGC) unit, which since 2012 has helped coordinate some 20 operations involving 139 countries resulting in the seizure of fake and illicit goods worth hundreds of millions of US dollars.
In her opening remarks, IFPI Chief Executive Officer Frances Moore said: “We greatly value our relationship with INTERPOL. For us in the music industry, the objective is to create space for the legal, licensed digital market to grow. If we look back over the last few years we can see that it is a strategy that is working. We have to continue to work together against piracy and the organized criminal gangs behind it. The people behind the largest pirate sites are making huge amounts of money, diverting it from flowing to rights holders and often using it to fund other illegal activities. The operators of pirate sites don’t invest in artists and music, don’t pay taxes, don’t create jobs.”