Plan to eliminate pirate VCDs gets good response<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The government's plan to eliminate pirated VCDs
\nnationwide starting from Friday received a warm welcome from the
\nVCD industry and a legal expert.<\/p>\n
They, however, strongly urged the authorities to first
\nidentify and apprehend major pirates instead of arresting small-
\nscale traders and rental shop owners.<\/p>\n
Contacted separately by The Jakarta Post on Thursday,
\nHayidrali Muhammad from the working committee of the Indonesian
\nCorruption Watch of the Foundation of the Indonesian Legal Aid
\nInstitute and Wihadi Wiyanto, secretary-general of the
\nAssociation of the Indonesian Video Recording Industry, said that
\nraiding retail and rental shops would only cause further
\nunemployment during the economic crisis.<\/p>\n
\"Thousands of people would lose their jobs, which would create
\nanother social problem,\" Hayidrali said.<\/p>\n
According to Hayidrali, the massive operation against shops
\nselling or renting out pirated VCDs would leave at least 33,000
\npeople jobless.<\/p>\n
He therefore suggested the government arrest major pirates, of
\nwhich he said there were three in the crowded Glodok electronics
\nbusiness center in West Jakarta.<\/p>\n
He also said the authorities should let small-scale traders
\ncontinue business as usual for the next three months during which
\ntime they could sell out their stock of pirated VCDs, he said.<\/p>\n
\"Such a scheme would be more effective than conducting massive
\nraids across the country,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Agreeing with the suggestion, Wiyanto added: \"It would be
\nbetter for the authorities to remind the retail and rental shops
\nonce again before completely closing down their businesses.\"<\/p>\n
The director of Film and Video Recording Supervision of the
\nMinistry of Information, Suryanto, announced on Wednesday that
\nbeginning Friday, the ministry with the help of the police would
\ncarry out a nationwide operation against producers, distributors,
\nretailers and renters of pirated VCDs.<\/p>\n
\"The cleanup will be conducted because the deadline of Feb. 25
\nagainst anyone producing, distributing, selling or renting
\npirated VCDs is already final,\" Suryanto said.<\/p>\n
According to reliable sources in the industry, netting major
\nVCD pirates in the capital would not be difficult.<\/p>\n
\"There are only three or four big VCD pirates here. They are
\nnot invisible but just untouchable because of the power of their
\nmoney,\" said one source.<\/p>\n
These three pirates, he said, own 85 percent of the country's
\ntotal annual production of 17 million copies of pirated VCDs.<\/p>\n
\"They're probably the biggest pirates in the country.\"<\/p>\n
One of them, for example, was believed to have distributed
\n350,000 pirated copies of Titanic in the local market.<\/p>\n
The other three along with other middle and low-grade pirates
\nproduced hundreds of thousands of copies of the same title with
\ndifferent covers and illustrations.<\/p>\n
\"Some of them were also shipped to neighboring countries,\" he
\nadded.<\/p>\n
\"To start such a promising multibillion business, one should
\nhave an investment of billions of rupiah for the VCD recording
\nmachines,\" another source said.<\/p>\n
\"Once you have the recording machine, you are able to meet a
\ngigantic order for duplicating, say 400,000 copies of a title, in
\njust a matter of minutes,\" he said.<\/p>\n
As a comparison, in the early 1970s, a pirate in Jakarta would
\nspend a whole day producing a few dozen pirated videocassettes,
\nhe added.<\/p>\n
\"It's really big money here and the public has nothing to
\ncomplain about because people really need cheap products for
\nentertainment. On the other hand, pirates can gain big bucks
\neasily as the raw materials, mostly plastic, required for
\nduplication process are quite cheap,\" the source explained.<\/p>\n
He insisted that the growing VCD piracy business in Indonesia
\nand other countries in Asia had strong support of parties in the
\nUnited States.<\/p>\n
\"What kind of technology do we have here to obtain a copy of a
\nfilm which just premiered in the States, for example?<\/p>\n
\"The answer is we get help from certain parties there who, for
\ninstance, videotape movies with digital handycams and then sell
\nthe copies to pirates in this region,\" he said.<\/p>\n
According to Farouk Cader, resident manager of the Los
\nAngeles-based Motion Picture Association, the retail price of
\nauthentic VCDs, which is about Rp 50,000, is the cheapest in the
\nregion.<\/p>\n
\"It's about three times lower than those of the same quality
\nin neighboring Singapore,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"It's the best price we can offer.<\/p>\n
\"Even at that rate, which many Jakartans still believe is
\nexpensive, many authentic VCDs are smuggled to Singapore and
\nother countries,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"It's a very dilemmatic situation,\" another source said.
\n(jun\/bsr)<\/p>",
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