With Video, Music Piracy on the Rise, NBC Chief Calls for Tougher Penalties

When Jeff Zucker took over media giant NBC Universal from longtime
chief executive Bob Wright in February, he inherited more than the
task of lifting the slumping network out of the ratings basement.
Zucker also took on Wright's self-appointed role as the industry's
torchbearer on fighting piracy.

Pirated copies of Zucker's hit shows continue to pop up on the
Internet and be sold from sidewalk blankets in Times and Red squares,
robbing Zucker's network and others of post-broadcast revenue from DVD
sales and downloads.

So today Zucker visits Washington to address the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce and ask lawmakers for tougher penalties for music and video
pirates, to keep consumers from pirating copies of "Heroes" and the
rest of his shows. Zucker is not asking lawmakers for economic relief
to offset industry losses attributed to piracy.

Recent industry data indicate that despite the music industry's
sue-and-shutdown strategy against illegal song-sharing sites and the
movie industry's global campaign against illegal DVDs -- and despite
industry efforts to sell content cheaply on services such as iTunes --
piracy continues to climb.

"If we don't continue our education campaign," Zucker said in an
interview Monday, "I fear that we will lose that momentum that we have
gained."
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That momentum is tentative at best, according to a Gallup survey of
American adults commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce that is to be
released today.

In 2005, 5 percent of survey respondents admitted to buying a song or
CD that they knew or suspected was "not genuine or legitimate."

By this year, that number had risen to 9 percent, the survey reports.
From 2005 to 2007, the percentage of respondents admitting to buying a
pirated movie rose to 6 percent from 3 percent, the survey says.

All told, 22 percent of surveyed American adults admitted to buying
some form of counterfeit goods in the past year, including illegally
downloaded songs, pirated DVDs and knockoff clothing, handbags and
shoes, with music by far the most purchased unauthorized product.

When asked why they buy these illegal goods, respondents replied most
often that they were "easily available." The most active consumers of
counterfeit goods are 18- to 24-year-olds, the survey says.

At the same time, once-soaring DVD sales have flattened in the past
two years, and CD shipments to retailers plummeted 13 percent last
year, the music industry has reported. Legal digital downloads of both
video and music have increased, though the revenue does not make up
for lost CD sales.