Music piracy in Italy was a major criminal activity – it should not be romanticised | Letter

Let’s not be taken in by fanciful tales that seek to justify or even glorify music piracy, says Enzo Mazza

Music piracy should not be romanticised (‘I was the Spotify of the 1980s!’ The Italian pirate mixtape empire that brought pop to the people, 8 March), as it was a major criminal activity – no different to the drug dealing or tobacco smuggling that generated millions of dollars in revenue for organised crime in Naples.

Europol and transnational investigations proved that counterfeiting and piracy weren’t victimless crimes: they were often linked to drug trafficking, money laundering and more besides, and Italy was unfortunately one of the top countries in the world for this in the early 1990s. In fact the US government elevated Italy to the priority watchlist of the Department of Commerce for a lack of enforcement, and our music industry was forced to create a special unit to fight the illegal business in the country.