I don't know this for a fact, but I will bet you that it's not legal to record a copyrighted work onto a cassette and give to your friends, either.
The RIAA tried to get this enforced when cassettes first came out, but dropped it because everybody realized that cassette copies are not as good as the original, and that copies of copies just make it worse.
With the advent of CD copying, it's more feasible that a copy of a copy of a copy is just as good as the original. So they care more.
The US saw a third consecutive year of decline, with album sales down 10% in units, mainly due to falling sales from major album releases affected by sales substitution from internet sources.
Japan has continued to suffer from internet piracy and CD burning. An estimated 236 million CD-Rs were burned in 2002, while legitimate CD sales were 229 million. Overall the Japanese market fell 9%, but has the biggest national market share for music video sales, valued at $US 407.5 million.
Several Western European markets performed relatively well in the context of the global decline. France, the world's fourth largest market, continued to defy the global trend with 4% growth in unit sales. This is largely attributable to the continued growth in sales of French repertoire. Norway, Italy and Portugal also saw more or less flat markets.
The German market stands out as worst affected by mass CD burning. Sales fell by 9%, Germany's fifth consecutive year of decline. Spain has now fallen behind other Western European countries in per capita sales, with a fall of 16% in value. Spain has seen a sharp increase in physical CD-R piracy: in 2002 some 24 million pirate units were sold, in other words two out of every five records.
The UK market in 2002 came to the end of its five-year growth run. While the number of albums sold remained stable at 226 million, downward pressure on prices meant the value of album sales fell by 3% and illegal downloading was just one of the factors contributing to the continued decline in single sales. However 2002 was a strong in the UK for domestic artists, who accounted for half of the top 40 selling albums.
Music sales across Asia fell by 10%, largely because of continuing economic difficulties and both physical and internet piracy. The exception was Singapore, which experienced a growth in both regional and international repertoire.
In Latin America, Brazil partly recovered from last year's severe decline (up 4%) due mostly to stock liquidations. Mexico remains the biggest Latin American market and 10th in the world despite a second consecutive year of decline, with sales down 19%. Piracy continues to plague the market with 50% of the population buying pirate music products. The Argentinean market continues to suffer from severe economic and political instability and has fallen steeply by 23%.
Source: IFPI