These days, I heard a lot of times that “One in three CDs is ‘illegal’” (in German, in English). It is very en vogue to blame the bad, bad music industry and I'm a bit hesitant to join the ranks. I'm not a friend of those that are only in favour of file sharing to justify their own thriftyness. However, since the reality is so much distorted by this kind of articles, it is important to present some arguments against the IFPI's reasoning.

Firstly, I am very disturbed by the monopolization of cultural assets by a small number of companies. Copyright duration was extended in the US several times during the last few decades. Now, quite a number of works are not available anymore because they are under copyright, but the copyright holder does not publish them anymore (often not quite in line with the wishes of the author). Unfortunately, the copyright holders seem to have only rights and no duties.

Secondly, when mentioning the billions of dollars in damages, the IFPI claims to also act for the artists. But it cannot be emphasized stronly enough: The money does not reach the artists. Independant musicians like Steve Lawson obviously think rather differently about music piracy, but even artists contracted by major labels don't necessarily agree with the IFPI. Courtney Love's article for Salon.com in 2000 is still a worthy read, and I'd love to cite the whole article. However, here's just a few choice quotes to demonstrate that the current debate only has one goal: To secure the benefices of the current system.

When you look at the legal line on a CD, it says copyright 1976 Atlantic Records or copyright 1996 RCA Records. When you look at a book, though, it'll say something like copyright 1999 Susan Faludi, or David Foster Wallace. Authors own their books and license them to publishers. When the contract runs out, writers gets their books back. But record companies own our copyrights forever.

(…)

Last November, a Congressional aide named Mitch Glazier, with the support of the RIAA, added a "technical amendment" to a bill that defined recorded music as "works for hire" under the 1978 Copyright Act.
(…)
Writing and recording "Hey Jude" is now the same thing as writing an English textbook, writing standardized tests, translating a novel from one language to another or making a map. These are the types of things addressed in the "work for hire" act.

(...)

TLC declared bankruptcy after they received less than 2 percent of the $175 million earned by their CD sales. That was about 40 times less than the profit that was divided among their management, production and record companies.

Toni Braxton also declared bankruptcy in 1998. She sold $188 million worth of CDs, but she was broke because of a terrible recording contract that paid her less than 35 cents per album.

(…)

Story after story gets told about artists -- some of them in their 60s and 70s, some of them authors of huge successful songs that we all enjoy, use and sing -- living in total poverty, never having been paid anything. Not even having access to a union or to basic health care. Artists who have generated billions of dollars for an industry die broke and un-cared for.

No wonder Courtney Love thinks (and I agree) that the real music pirates are somewhere else:

What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. I'm not talking about Napster-type software. I'm talking about major label recording contracts.