100,000 pirated discs, porn flicks seized
100,000 pirated discs, porn flicks seized
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
City police raided on Thursday a warehouse storing pirated CDs,
VCDs and DVDs in Glodok, West Jakarta, a business area known as
the country's largest pirated CD market.
In the raid, authorities confiscated about 100,000 pirated
discs from the warehouse, including some 4,000 pirated adult
movie discs and seven boxes of disc covers.
City police fraud squad deputy chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Agung
Sabar Santoso said that officers were still searching for the
owner of the warehouse identified as "TP".
"We will continue to hunt him down. We believe that he is
responsible for producing a lot of other discs. We are now
investigating other locations and buildings where he produces and
stores similar pirated discs," Agung said.
The raid was part of a police crackdown on sources of pirated
discs widely distributed across the capital, he said.
"We are still trying to seek the factories where the discs
were produced to directly address the problems from the source."
However, discs could also be being created outside the city
and brought in illicitly, Agung said.
Despite laws on intellectual property and piracy, copied discs
are common in Jakarta and retailers sell them openly in stalls
across the city without fear of prosecution.
Several laws, including Law No. 8/1992 on film copyright, Law
No. 19/2002 on intellectual property rights, and the Criminal
Code provide penalties of up to three years' jail for disc
piraters and sellers.
Two other well-known centers for pirated discs are Ratu Plaza
in Central Jakarta and Ambassador Mall in South Jakarta.
About 2 million new pirated CDs, VCDs, and DVDs are
distributed across the country every day with an average price of
between Rp 3,000 and 10,000 apiece, while original discs are sold
for between Rp 45,000 to Rp 200,000 each.
Domestic recording business players and distributors said that
they were planning to produce and distribute inexpensive original
CDs, VCDs and DVDs directly for local markets in a bid to compete
with pirated copies.
The association of Indonesian Recording and Traders chairman
Doemoli Siahaan said that they had formed a consortium comprised
of producers and distributors to produce and sell original VCDs
and CDs at Rp 10,000 and DVDs at Rp 12,500.
A trader in Glodok said retailers regularly gave money local
police precincts to ensure they could sell their goods freely.
"Every day police officers from the West Jakarta and the Taman
Sari precincts come here, but they do nothing to us. The boss has
taken care of them. Look at the two men there, they are police
officers from the Taman Sari police station," he told The Jakarta
Post while pointing to two men talking to a disc seller.