Thursday, July 1, 2010

Software Piracy in Indonesia

For many years, Indonesia has been known as a haven for Software Piracy.

This is ironic because Indonesia has been trying its best to protect Copyrights in general and Computer Software in particular for the last 28 years, i.e. since the Copyright Law was promulgated in 1982.

Further, Indonesia has also tried to satisfy the wishes of foreign countries by amending the said law three times i.e. in 1987, 1997 and 2002. 

Furthermore, Indonesia has also ratified international conventions for protection of Intellectual Property Rights, i.e establishment of the World Trade Organization which includes Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights in 1994, Bern Convention in 1997 and World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty in 1997.

Unfortunately, all those efforts failed to prevent Software Piracy, which can be seen from the fact that it is not difficult to get a fake Computer Software from many shopping places in Jakarta and vicinity.

According to the Business Software Alliance (BSA) i.e. an agency established by the world's prominent software producers a.o. Microsoft, Apple, Autodesk, Adobe, Corel and Symantec, Software Piracy in Indonesia will be increasing this year.

In spite of the gloomy situation, some local Software manufacturers have been quite successful in developing and marketing their own products in Indonesia and foreign market.

Considering the above, I felt that more serious efforts must be made to eradicate Software Piracy in Indonesia i.e. by enforcing the above mentioned Copyright Law, so that the Software industry can be developed more rapidly.

Please find below some related articles :
Hak Cipta (Copyrights)
Indonesia To See Software Piracy Rising This Year.
Indonesia's Global Brand (Part 8 : Software).

15 comments:

Ferdinand said...

aku tanggapi pake bahsa indonesia ya Sob:

wah yg namanya pembajakan di Indonesia emank udah ga terkendali bukan hanya Film dan musik tapi softwarepun lebih parah...

tapi klo menurutku sih itu terjadi karna harganya yg mahal untuk di beli originalnya.....

pj said...

Its often hard to find real software in Indonesia. The shopkeepers look at you funny if you ask for it. I pretty much end up buying my software directly from the web these days.

On the other hand the licensed version of some of this pirated software is so expensive (for individuals or small businesses) that using pirate software for one-off projects is irrestible

colson said...

The gap between legislation and enforcement probably is lack of money and expertise on the part of the enforcers.

And also it isn't high on the priority list of law enforcers anyhow I guess. At least it isn't over here.

Unknown said...

@Ferdinan,
Anda tepat sekali, kawan. Masalahnya yang orginal dijual mahal sekali maka orang banyak yang beli bajakan.
Kalau kita perhatikan kadangkala orang asing/bule ada juga yang senang membelinya.

@PJ,
That's what the first commenter i.e. Ferdinand, the problem is because the price originals are so expensive for individuals and small business.
If producers can lower selling price of original Software after certain period, maybe piracy can be reduced.

Unknown said...

Hi Colson,
It is hard to say that the cause is lack of money and expertise of the enforcement agency.
Many people here said that the govt should have strong political will to enforce the law. But there will be bitter consequences i.e. no more alternative for (original) software which are too expensive for most individuals and small businesses.

scribadiva said...

HI! I'm sorry it took so long to respond. I had a security problem and couldn't log in to BC, and didn't get a notice, either. We have things in common. I created the computer department at a law school: I'll tell you the way Lawyers here think about pirated software! Come see me and give me your opinion on my blog. needleinanewgroove.com. I tried becoming a google friend, but it didn't work. I'm going to try again: it's the icon of Kuan Yin. See you: Sweet tides,

Unknown said...

I think a lot of countries have problems with this sort of piracy. We have had a new Kiwi made movie(Boy)here which is breaking all sorts of records; but however illegal pirated downloads from the internet will cost the makers a lot of revenue. Its a problem.

peter

Unknown said...

@Scribadiva,
Thanks a lot, I go to your blog and will do the same.

@Peter/Kiwi,
Very sad indeed. Perhaps producers should sell original products at a price affordable for most people to buy. That way people would not want to buy fake ones.

Yari NK said...

If the copyright law is put into effect, what becomes of the piracy industry that also has contributed to the national economy and in a way has boosted the national gross domestic product?? Pity them!

LOL. I'm just kidding, Harry! :D

Unknown said...

Hi Yari,
I always like your sense of humor.
But somehow, what you are saying is quite true.

Unknown said...

The high price of the original software certainly discourage users. Enforcement may reduce the availability to some extent but not much coz worse come to the worst they would just go underground/black market.

baju muslim said...

hay...

Unknown said...

@Umihoney,
You are very right, as always, that stronger law enforcement would only cause those pirate software go underground/black market.

@BajuMuslim,
Hay juga, terima kasih atas kunjungannya.

Tikno said...

Just liking Yari's humor not to the piracy.

Gen Kanai said...

Thanks for this informative post. What's your take on whether Indonesia could/will adopt more free/open-source software instead of relying on piracy of commercial software? There's OSS solutions for just about everything today and the quality is often as good as the best of the commercial, if not sometimes better than commercial software (Linux, Apache, Open Office, Mozilla, etc.)