14/01/2005 - 16 titles sold over a million copies in 2004 compared with nine in 2003. But the value of the black market of pirate DVDs was worth £400 to £500 ml

The UK video market grew by 12% in 2004 with 233.5 million units sold against 208 million in 2003 according to the British Video Association.
With DVD player penetration over the 60% mark nowadays, DVD largely contributed to the maturity of the market as DVD sales increased by 36% while VHS sales dropped by 41%.
16 titles sold over a million copies in 2004 compared with nine in 2003, and the year’s top five best-sellers were Finding Nemo, Lords of the Rings Return of the King, Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, Shrek 2 and Love Actually.

“BVA Director General Lavinia Carey said: “these results are better than we expected in December. The video market was expected to start maturing at some stage, producing slower growth rates than we’ve seen in the last few years”. However she added: “What is perhaps less predictable and more worrying is the recent dramatic rise in the level of DVD piracy. Over the past six months, this has begun to make itself feel at store level”.

Piracy was in fact the subject of the European Film Piracy Summit in London last Tuesday organized by trade publication Screen International. During the conference, John Woodward, Head of the UK Film Council stressed that piracy is indeed “the biggest threat to the film industry”, and that many jobs within the industry could be lost within 10 years if physical piracy and online piracy were not contained. According to the UK Film Council, the value of the black market of pirate DVDs in the UK was worth £400 to £500 in 2003 and during the first half of 2004, as many as 1.4 million pirated DVDs were seized.