Odd economic indicator of the day

at 04:57 PM ET, 01/11/2012

Thanks to the growing popularity of Internet piracy and video-on-demand services, burglars in Great Britain no longer consider DVDs and CDs worth stealing:

“Years ago, you’d see a man in a pub selling CDs,” says Eric Phelps, a detective in London’s Metropolitan Police. “Not any more.” Indeed, thefts of entertainment products like CDs and DVDs have collapsed in England and Wales, to the point that they are now taken in just 7% of all burglaries in which something is stolen (see chart). They are now targeted no more frequently than are toiletries and cigarettes.

The computer-theft industry, on the other hand, is booming...

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