IIPA: Excess Disc Production Capacity Aids Piracy

According to the International Intellecytual Property Alliance's 2005 Special 301 Report on Global Copyright Protection and Enforcement, an explosion in the world’s capacity to produce optical disc products has been driven by the ever-growing worldwide demand for copyrighted high-tech and entertainment products and the potential for pirates to generate billions of dollars in illegal income:

Unfortunately, production capacity now greatly exceeds legitimate demand,
with the difference inuring to the benefit of illegal pirate enterprises.
Increasingly, recordable optical media are also used to "burn" unauthorized
copies on a commercial basis. Pirate CDs, VCDs, CD-ROMs and DVDs containing
protected music, sound recordings, audiovisual works, business and entertainment
software and books and journals have quickly decimated the market for legitimate
U.S. products. The growth in the number and capacity of optical disc factories
around the globe has been staggering. Based on our survey of optical disc
production in 77 countries/territories:

• There were as many as 973 optical disc production plants producing
  "finished" optical discs worldwide, having 4,405 production lines, with a
  production capacity of nearly 16 billion discs in 2004.
• Well over 1,100 optical disc plants exist worldwide producing both finished
  and blank discs, having over 7,800 production lines, with a production capacity
  of more than 27.8 billion discs in 2004.
• Production capacity of finished discs shot up to as much as 16 billion discs
  in 2004, from a reported 9.5 billion discs in 2003, a 66% increase in reported
  production capacity over the previous year.