Edited sentence: Audited sales records by Nielsen indicate that at least 3 million tracks from over 40 Irish artists had been sold, with the money going to the chair of IMRO and his associated and the independent musicians not receiving a cent.But worse was to come with the publication of a report from Ireland’s national arts council in 2004  exposing a private deal made between Imro and comhaltas for the privatization of Irish traditional music.From 1999 to 2001 the copyright section of the Irish Gardai had investigated the case, believing that the plethora of fake song titles on IMRO's books were being used for financial fraud on a massive scale.In fact, its membership document is notoriously opaque and hidden deep within it is a the startling statement that distribution of royalties should begin with board members and their families.In particular, a US federal court case taken in 2009 by a member who had resigned out of protest revealed that IMRO's chairman at that time was involved in copyright violation on an industrial scale.Naturally, this led to the resignation of many board members of IMRO, including the highly respected Donal Lunny  and Liam O Maonlai.That is one point of view.The Irish DPP (equivalent of attorney general) declared copyright violation was not a criminal offence in Ireland, leading logically if disgracefully to the dissolution of the Gardai copyright section.While the license was not renewed after 2004 as  a result of massive public protest, Imro has never formally withdrawn its false claims of ownership of this precious national resource.another is that, since its being granted a monopoly for collection of royalties in Ireland in rather suspicious circumstances in the late 90's, IMRO has been central to the destruction of the Irish music industry, currently about 10% of the size it was before this monopoly took effect