"By some estimates, for every legitimate [movie DVD]
copy that is sold by the producer, another five to 10 copies are sold by
pirates," said a World Bank study last year. Music CDs are also
mass-replicated, leading to losses valued at hundreds of millions of dollars
for the film and music industries.
Developing countries have increasingly been looking to
creative goods as a source of revenue, according to the study. Asian economies
accounted for more than three-quarters of total exports of creative goods from
the global south. In Latin America and the Caribbean, exports of creative goods
more than doubled – from £2.1bn to $5.3bn – between 1996 and 2005. But Africa,
which accounts for less than 1% of creative goods exports, has been left
behind.
