Bekasi resident arrested for book piracy
BEKASI, West Java (JP): Police have confiscated a set of printing machines, four trucks of books worth Rp 1 billion (US$422,654) and arrested a person suspected of illegally reprinting books and dictionaries.
"The pirated books and dictionaries include those whose copyrights are held by the Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York," Bekasi police chief, Lt. Col. Alex Bambang Riatmodjo, said Saturday.
Police said that the suspect, identified as Sup, 56, was arrested Friday at his residence in the Pondok Pekayon Indah housing complex, Bekasi, while the pirated books were seized from his printing factory two kilometers away.
Alex said that police have also questioned 11 people who worked at the printing factory owned by Sup.
He added that he arrested the suspect after receiving a report from one of the publishers whose books were being pirated.
The pirated books include the English-Indonesia and the Indonesia-English dictionaries by John M. Echols and Hassan Shadily; the Germany-Indonesia dictionary by Adolf Heuken SJ; Sosiologi dan Antropologi (Sociology and Anthropology) by Nursal Luth; Panca Sila dan Undang-Undang Dasar 1945 by CST Kansil; Manajemen Pemasaran by Philip Kotler; Sistem Akuntansi by Mulyadi; IQRA Sistem Belajar Membaca Al-Qur'an Cepat by As'ad Humam; Standar Akuntansi Keuangan by Salemba Empat publisher; Japan-Indonesia dictionary by Dian Karya publisher and Manajemen Keuangan.
The books were originally printed in Indonesia by PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama, PT Balai Pustaka and other publishers.
The original copyright of the English-Indonesia dictionary is held by the Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York.
The promotion manager of PT Gramedia, Aris Buntarman, told The Jakarta Post that his partner from Cornell University blamed his company, accusing him of illegally reprinting the books.
Aris said that he had received complaints from buyers for the inferior printing qualities of those books before he reported the case to the police.
Sup told the press on Saturday that he had been pirating books for five months.
He admitted to spending more than Rp 16 million on paper alone. He said some of the books had been sold for Rp 10,000 per copy to students of privately run universities in Jakarta and Bandung, West Java.
"The books sold well due to the lower prices I offered, less than half the prices of the original," said Sup. (kod)