MUMBAI: The Indian Music Industry has conducted over 100 raids throughout the country to combat the new menace of `mobile chip piracy`.The IMI says that with India crossing the 100 million mobile subscriber mark, and approximately 25-30 per cent of the phone models in the market capable of music transfers, music piracy in the form of Mobile Chip Piracy is gaining currency.

The IMI estimates the size of the music market on mobile phones to be Rs four billion, including products like ring tones - monophonic and polyphonic; True Tones; Ring back Tones; Full song mobile downloads; Music videos.

Considering royalty, for the music industry, on products like full songs download at approximately Rs five per download and assuming one illegal transfer per phone per month, the loss amounts to Rs 12.5 million per month, says the IMI. Mobile chip piracy attracts provisions of the CR Act under Sections 51, 52A, 63, 65 and 68A. Digitized music can be easily copied from any storage device like computer hard disc or USB drive, mobile phone with stored music etc. into the built in memory of a mobile phone or on memory cards or chips which can be further inserted into other mobile phones.

The persons who can indulge in mobile piracy include mobile phone dealers, mobile phone repair shops, computer/ computer accessories dealers, shops selling video games, games parlours, says the IMI..The illegal transfer of music on mobile phones can be done via Bluetooth, Data Cable, Memory Card, IRDA and wi-fi, while the modes of transfer could be: PC to Mobile Phone. PC to memory card to mobile phone; Mobile phone to mobile Phone; Mobile phone to memory card to mobile phone; Sale of memory card pre-embedded with pirated music.