Innovation: Pirate beater

The music industry is hitting back at compact disc pirates by imprinting CDs with a code that proves they come from an accredited factory. Starting this month, the Source Identification Code will be assigned by the electronics company Philips when it grants a manufacturing licence, or upon application from a licensee.

It will be up to CD manufacturers to decide whether to use the code but the industry body, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), points out that any record company that is worried about its products being stolen will want to use a registered factory. The IFPI says it has tracked 209 illicit CD plants with a combined production capacity of more than 2 billion CDs a year, twice that of of legitimate CD sales. The federation is pressing for worldwide legislation to make it illegal to manufacture or import uncoded CDs.