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).

US$ 1.92 million for Downloading Music

Music is a work or art based on the Idea, Energy, Time and Money of a person or group of persons who composed therefore entitled to enjoy (financial) benefits that music can bring.

In order to safeguard the rights of people who created the Music, many countries enacted the Copyright Law to protects Music creators from others who want to gain illegal benefits from the Music. However, this thus not guarantee protection.
For example Indonesia has enacted its Copyright Law since 1982, but it is not hard to find music recording copies/download at many shopping places in Jakarta and other cities. Due to which fact, countries like the United States have forced our country to amend the said law three times.

Apparently, illegal downloading of Music also occurred in the United States, one of which is mentioned in Legal Blog Watch about Jammie Thomas-Rasset (32) who was ordered by a Jury in Minnesota to pay compensation of US$ 1.92 Million to the Music industry for illegal Downloading of 24 songs, that is US$ 80,000 per song.
This was the second trial for her, in the first downloading case to go to trial. Two years ago, a jury ordered her to pay $222,000 for downloading those songs US$ $9,250 per song. The judge declared a mistrial and she opted for a second go-around.
Ms Thomas-Rasset and her lawyer were angry about the Court Verdict because they have been confident that any liability finding would be for the Statutory minimum amount of US$ 750 per song.
The Music Industry as Plaintiff has said that it has been prepared to settle the case amicably from the start, and it has nothing further to gain by chasing after money it will never recover.

Considering the above, I hope that the Copyright Law would be enforced accordingly so as to prevent wrong people from taking commercial benefits from Musics.

The Pirate Bay case

On 17 April 2009, the District Court of Stockholm-Sweden found Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundström guilty of having assisted in making 33 Copyright-protected files available on their free-file sharing website The Pirate Bay, punished each of them to one year in prison and ordered them to pay compensation amounting to US$ 3,6 million.

According to Legal Blog Watch, soon after the court passed said verdict, a Swedish radio station revealed that the court’s judge i.e Tomas Norström is a member of 2 pro Copyright groups: the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property, and the Swedish Copyright Association whose members include three of the Plaintiffs' lawyers Henrik Pontén, Peter Danowsky & Monique Wadsted.

According Reuters, on 27 April, Carl Lundstrom’s lawyer Per Samuelson said in a document sent to the Court of Appeal that the judge’s membership in those groups should have disqualified him from presiding of the case. He said :
"Tomas Norstrom was biased during the trial ... Secondly, he neglected to inform the defendants and their lawyers of the facts that constituted the bias."

Due to the above facts, the Defendants have filed appeal with the High Court to request for a retrial of the case. So, the faith of the four defendants now rests in the hands of the judges of said Court.

The Risk of Writing Online

I have heard many times about fellow bloggers complaining that their writings have been claimed by others as their own works. And I believe that they have every reason to complain, not only because they have used their thoughts, time and energy to do the writing, but also because the Copyright Law protect them from such kind of action.

However, the judges of a state appeals court in California, U.S.A, seemed to think differently when they recently passed a verdict regarding a posting in the social networking site MySpace.com.
In this regards, Legal Blog Watch quoted an article in SFGate.com saying that the case dates back to October 2005 when Cynthia Moreno returned from a visit to her hometown of Coalinga, Calif., and ranted about the community in her online journal. She removed the posting six days later, but in the interim, Roger Campbell, principal of Coalinga High School, downloaded the entry and gave it to a friend, the editor of the Coalinga Record, who soon published it as a letter to the editor. Following the publication, Moreno's sister and parents, who still lived in Coalinga, received death threats and a shot was fired at their home. Eventually, the threats drove them out of town and forced Moreno's father to shut down a 20-year-old family business.
Moreno and her family sued the newspaper and the principal for intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy. The appeals court let stand the emotion distress claims, but dismissed the invasion of privacy action, finding that Moreno's posting "made her article available to any person with a computer and thus opened it to the public eye."

The above court's verdict makes us realize what sort of risk we take (to our privacy) when we are writing online.

Abolish the IP Laws to save the Economy

Between 1960 and 1990, four Asian countries Taiwan, South Korea, Hongkong and Singapore, have developed their industries a lot much faster compared to any other countries in the world.

Many factors have been mentioned as the basis for their industrial progress, but according to Wikipedia the most determining factor is the Traditional Philosophies of the hard working people of those countries.
Meanwhile, Scripted wrote that such progress was achieved because during those years those countries have not been serious in protecting Intellectual Property (IP) right.

In this regards, I read a blog post in Legal Blog Watch about two Economists at Washington University i.e. Michele Boldrin and David Levine, who claimed to know how to revive the current economy crisis without any stimulus policy. Their proposal is to abolish the Patent, Trademark & Copyright laws which they said have discouraged innovation and prevent inventions from entering the marketplace.
In their book "Against Intellectual Property Monopoly" they said:
"So-called intellectual property is in fact an 'intellectual monopoly' that hinders rather than helps the competitive free market regime that has delivered wealth and innovation to our doorsteps,"
They said that there's plenty of protection and opportunities to make money for inventors and creators. And there are lots of ways to make money without IP.
However, the economists realized that it is impossible to eliminate the IP laws drastically, so they will propose an incremental approach to gradually reduce the scope of those laws.

Although the IP Laws may discouraged innovations and prevent inventions of certain people, especially those who have bad faith, however as any laws, the IP Laws are needed to ensure legal certainty and justice for the whole society in general.

Blawgers are human beings

As a human being, I tend to get bored in doing the same things for a very long time. But for things that are related to my day job, my family and other important things, I would usually get my passion back quite easily.

One of the things that I have been doing very passionately for the last five months is blogging, for which purpose I have read/heard/watch news media & other blogs for inspirations. But considering that when I first created this blog I have limited the topics to the Laws and Regulations in Indonesia, I often face some sort of " Writer's Block" whereby I don't have idea what to write about.

In this regards, I have read an interesting posting by Robert Ambrogi in Law.com saying that it is usual for blawgers to face boredom. He even mentioned that two American Copyright Blawgers have ended their blawg. The first one was Google's Copyright Lawyer William Patry who ended his blog The Patry Copyright Blog last August, because his readers refused to separate him as Google's Lawyer and as a personal blawger. Besides, the present condition of Copyright Law is depressing him. Two months later, another Copyright Lawyer Keith Henning ended his blawg Copywrite for similar reason.

Considering the above, and the fact that I really love blogging, I have decided to expand the topic of my blog, thus not merely limited to the Laws and Regulations but include other matters related to the implementation of the laws e.g Politics, etc.

Intellectual Property Piracy

For many years, Indonesia has been regarded by countries like the U.S.A, the European Union, Japan, as a haven for Intellectual Property Rights piracy.

In order to improve our country’s image, our government and parliament have promulgated laws to protect domestic and foreign Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights and Industrial Designs, and punish violators. Besides, we have ratified International Intellectual Property Rights conventions and treaties. Further, our law enforcement agencies have implemented those laws, e.g by regular police raids in shopping places selling pirate products and prosecute the pirates in courts. However, foreign and local pirate products keep on circulating in many modern & traditional shopping places throughout Indonesia.

Due to this fact, foreign countries and international organizations have demanded Indonesia to improve the protection of those rights; some even threatened to impose trade sanction if our country doesn’t improve protection of those rights.
Bisnis Indonesia/Suwantin Oemar reported that the United States Trade Representative is currently evaluating the protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Indonesia. According to the Director General of Intellectual Property Rights Andy Sommeng, one of the objectives of said evaluation is to push for amendment of Intellectual Property laws in Indonesia.

In view of the above, I felt that our country can eliminate or at least minimize infringement of Intellectual Property Rights, if we consistently implement laws regarding Patent, Trademark, Copyright and Industrial Designs. Besides that, considering that many of the pirate products are imported, the Customs Office and the Department of Trade should also be involved, so that cheap imported pirate products would not be allowed to enter our country.

Is U2 infringing Copyright?

An American musician Taylor Deupree has accused the Irish band U2 of infringing his copyright, according to NME.com
Images: Left Deupree's - Right U2.

Deupree said in his blog 12k that the cover of U2’s latest album ‘No Line on the Horizon’ used similar artwork as the cover of Dupree’s 2006 album ‘Specification.Fifteen’.
Ironically, both album covers are using the same photograph of Japanese artist and photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto as basis.

But Deupree refused to take legal action because he believed that U2 has no intention to infringe his artwork, and both have legal permissions to use the photograph. In stead, he said that Sugimoto or U2’s designer could have suggested a different photograph.

In reaction to this controversial issue, U2’s album cover designer team i.e. FourOne explained in U2’s website that the design was based on the title of said album, and Bono’s preference of Sugimoto’s artwork. But they have done something different with Sugimoto’s image, something that is uniquely connected with U2’s music that is by adding the EQUAL sign.

Although Deupree would not press charge against U2 however I sincerely hope that U2 would be more careful in the future whenever they want to use a design or even record music, by always double check the originality.

Images:TaylorDeupree

Surviving Piracy

Difficulty drives creativity! Those are the right words to describe the efforts made by our music industry dealing with the devastating piracy.

Yes, creativity is really needed in order to survive the worsening piracy that has plagued our Music Industry. Kompas has quoted Danny Widjanarko/Chairman of the Indonesian Artists Manager Association as saying that only 6% of the Music recording products that are circulating in the market are originals, the rests are fake. Thus, it is for that 6% that the musicians are competing against each other. Based on data of the Indonesian Music Recording Industry (ASIRI) every year the revenue from sales of musical cassettes /cd decreases. In the year 1997, the total sales reached 90 million cassette/cd, whereas in the 2006 only reached 24 million, in 2007 only 19 million and in the year 2008 only 11 million. Due to this fact, the music industry has decreased the requirement to get sales achievement award i.e. the Platinum Award, from 150,000 pieces to 75,000 cassette/cd.

Considering the above, musicians and the recording companies have decided to make music recordings for Ring Back Tones of cellular mobile phones, the total of which according to ASIRI could reach 8 to 10 million songs per month.
As an alternative, some musicians have sold their music recordings digitally through certain websites in the internet.

It is very sad to know that in spite of all the efforts that has been made to improve our Copyright Law (3 amendments, the latest in 2002), such law cannot be implemented, thus IMPOTENT! The worse thing is that many of the fake/pirate products circulating in many parts of our country are made by other countries. Those countries gets double benefits in this case: they get money from the sales of pirate products but they cannot be blamed for it, because the products are not sold in their own countries. And Indonesia will be blamed for circulation of those pirate products (although illegally).
So in this case, the roots of the problem is the same i.e. inability to enforce our own law.
But again, we should never loose hope that one day efforts would be made to improve the enforcement of the Copyright laws, including the ban on smuggling of pirate products.

Pic:CopyRightFreePhotos

Artists' Copyrights

The Jakarta Post reported that several Fashion Designer, Musician and Movie actress have shared their experiences about copyright infringements during the conference of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Bali, last Tuesday.

Batik designer Obin a.k.a Josephine Komara talked about how she was shocked yet happy when she found out in Tokyo, Japan, that her batik design has been infringed by a famous international designer.
Indrato Budi of the Indonesian Recording Industry Association believed that if piracy is not prevented the recording industry could only survive for the next 8 years.
Movie actress Christine Hakim said that several of her movie concepts had been copied, and her name had been used without permission.
Filipino Musician Ryan Cayabyab said that the question on copyright infringement centered on the marketing’s ability to adapt to the piracy threat and what the government could do to enforce a new law.

Meanwhile, Ronald Chan of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) said that Indonesian Software companies have to compete with local and global pirate products. Actually, if software piracy could be reduced by 10% Indonesia would be able to create 2,200 new jobs, generate US$ 1,8 billion in economic development and gain US$ 88 million in tax revenue.

The above mentioned complaints are familiar for us, because although our country has already amended, thus improved, its Copyright Law for three times, but protection of Copyright is still very poor. It is very easy for anyone to get pirate products: music, movies, computer soft wares, enyywhere in Indonesia. In Jakarta alone you can easily get them in traditional markets as well as in shopping malls/plaza. The funny thing is that such fake products would disappear every time the Police carry out raid/operation against them, as if the Sellers have already been informed in advance.

Actually, it is not impossible to eliminate or minimize Copyright Infringement in Indonesia. It can be acheived if every element in our society i.e. the Government, the Law Enforcement agencies, the Courts of Justice and citizens, want to upheld the Copyright law. And any violation should be punished accordingly. But again, it is much easier to be said than done. As any other legal problems faced by Indonesia, the question is not whether or not we already have a law that regulate the settlement of the problem, but rather, whether or not we are willing to implement the said law properly and accordingly?

Pic:Wikipedia

Scientists feud

I used to think that most scientists are quality persons who think, feel and do things based on logics, therefore they would not do things which are very wrong.

That's why I was surprised when I read in Kompas on Wednesday, 19 November 2008, that the Chairperson of the Meteorology, Climatology & Geophysics Board (BMKG): Sri Woro Harijono has been accused by the Board’s Chief of Research & Development: Dr Mezak Ratag, of having plagiarized his scientific work and falsified his signature. Due to which fact, Dr Mezak has resigned from his job.
Kompas quoted Dr Mezak as saying that the alleged Plagiarism was related to the additional credit point given to Sri for her job promotion on May 2007 when Dr Mezak was BMKG’s Chief of Researcher Job Title Evaluation Team. Sri denied those allegations, saying that the additional credit point was recommended by a Team. Further, Sri shown a letter dated 21 May 2007 which enclosed a list of scientific works by Sri signed by Dr Mezak addressed to the Chairman of the Indonesian Science Institute (LIPI) with c.c to the Chief of LIPI’s Central Evaluation Team. Dr Mezak reacted by submitting a report to the Jakarta Police on Tuesday, 18 Thursday 2008, accusing Sri of violating the Copyright Law No. 19/2002 Art. 72 Par. 1&2 and falsification of letter based on the Penal Code (KUHP) Art. 263.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Research & Technology: Kusmayanto Kadiman has requested that the case to be settled academically through the Council of Research Professors and Central Evaluation Team of LIPI headed by Deputy Chairman of LIPI Lukman Hakim. According to Lukman, researchers who violate academic conditions for requesting job promotion shall be penalized. He said that the title of Sri’s scientific work :
“ Less Greenhouse Gas Emission Technologies in the Context of Climate Change “ is similar to the title of book published by the Ministry of Research & Technology in 2001. Dr Mezak agreed that an academic settlement is really needed for this case, while Sri Woro prefers the case to be settled through legal proceedings, and said that she is ready for it.

In conclusion I would like to say that this matter should be settled immediately first academically then if the allegation against Sri Woro is confirmed to proceed with the legal proceedings, so that the image of Indonesian scientists and BMGK would not be marred.

Image:nooblogs

Reproduction of Books

For many years, Song Writers in Indonesia have enjoyed protection of their works and receive Royalty which are collected for them by a special organization called Yayasan Karya Cipta Indonesia(YKCI) since 1990. But unfortunately, we still have no organization which provide similar services for Book Writers, although in is evident that Pirate Books are circulating around us.

Considering this fact, on Thursday, 13 November 2008, the Indonesian Publishers Union (IKAPI) together with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organization have declared the establishment of an Indonesian Reproduction Organization in the form of Yayasan Cipta Buku Indonesia.
In this connection, Kompas has quoted the Chairman of IKAPI Setia Dharma Madjid as saying that the objective of the new organization is to protect the rights of the Writers and Publishers of Books, and to enhance Copyright awareness as well as to manage Copyright of Books. He said that the problem currently faced by Book Writers are Book Piracy and multification of Books through Photocopy in higher educational institutions. He explained that in Singapore such organization collect Royalty for Reproduction Rights from institutions which made the photocopies and channel them to their rightful Writers and the Publishers who are members of the organization.
According to the Marketing Manager of Salemba Publishing i.e. Sudarno, Book Piracy caused the decrease of 50 to 70& in sales revenue, consequently the Writers' Royalty would also decrease.
Meanwhile, Asia Pacific consultant of WIPO Chandra Darusman said that appreciation for writers in our country is still very low. Chandra, who is the former Secretary General of YKCI, gave an example that for a period of 10 years YKCI was only able to collect Rp 10.000.000.000,-

In conclusion, I would like to say that the Reproduction Rights Organization has a very important role to protect the rights of Book Writers and Publishers in our country who are often unaware or do not really care about Copyright. Besides, such organization would help the collection and distribution of royalty to their rightful owners.

Image:BigFoto

Copyright for Traditional Arts

" It's very difficult to request Copyright registration for Asmat Wood Carving! " that's the title of an article in Kompas last Sunday, 12 October. It also mentioned that efforts has been made to obtain Copyright registration in Indonesia and abroad but all in vain. Unfortunately, the article did not mention details like specific of the Creation i.e. title, characteristics etc, whether or not the Creation has been publicized, name of the applicant for Copyright. This article is surprising, because logically there should not be any problem to register parts of our national treasure like the Asmat Wood Carving in our country which already promulgated 4 Copyrights Laws including 3 amendments i.e. Law No. 6 Year 1982, amended by Law No.7 Year 1987, amended by Law No.12 Year 1997, amended by Law No.19 Year 2002. In order to know the fact of the matter, we need to know the definition of Copyright, Creation, Creator, according to Article 1 of the Copyright Law No.19 Year 2002, as follows :
1.A Copyright is an Exclusive Right of a Creator or Recipient of the Right to publicize and multiply a Creation or to permit others to do it based on valid laws;
2.A Creator is a person or several persons working together and inspired to make a Creation based on their own Thinking, Imagination,Creativity, which are manifested
in a special form and characteristic.
3.A Creation is any original work of a Creator in the fields of Science, Art and Literature;
4.A Holder of a Copyright is a Creator as Owner of the Creation, or other party which receive such right from the Creator, other party that receive a right from said
Recipient;
5.Publication is Reading, Broadcasting, Exhibiting, Distributing, or Circulating a Creation using any methods, including by Internet or any other ways, so that such Creation can be Read, Heard or Seen by other people;
Article 2 defined Copyright as an Exclusive Right of a Creator or Holder of Copyright
to publicize or multiple his/her Creation automatically after a Creation was made.
Article 6 defined that, unless proven otherwise, a Creator is a person who is registered in the Directorate General of Intellectual Property, or a person whose name is mentioned in a creation or publicized as the Creator of a Creation.
Article 10 stipulates about Creations whose Creators are unknown:
1.The state is the Copyright Holder of Prehistorical works, History, and other National cultural products;
2.The state is Copyright Holder of Folklore and Common people's cultural products
such as stories,tales,legends, babad, song, handicraft,choreography,calligraphy, dance and other works of arts;
3.In order to publicize or multiply Creation in Paragraph 2, a Foreigner must obtain
a prior permit from institution related to said matter;
Article 11 stipulates that if a Creation has been publicized but the Creator is unknown, the State will be its Copyright Holder for the interest of the Creator;

Based on the above, we can say that Copyright Registration is not the only way to protect a Creation, but for better protection and legitimate evidence, Copyright Registration is the best. For Traditional Work of Art, like the Asmat Wood Carving, application should be made by a Creator for example by the Chief of the Tribe. If there are several types of products, separate applications should be submitted for each types, mentioning specific characteristics of each type. The date and place of Creation and Publication (if already publicized) should be mentioned too.

Image: Wikipedia