Consumers part of copyright problem: Minister
Consumers part of copyright problem: Minister
JAKARTA (JP): Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono said yesterday that consumers are partly to blame for the widespread violation of intellectual property rights in Indonesia.
The government has waged a long-time campaign against copyright violations, but, Moerdiono said, efforts will remain futile as long as consumers demand cheaper, pirated versions of products of creativity.
There appears to be a lack of awareness of the importance of respecting people's copyrights, he said in keynote address during a discussion on copyrights, especially for musical creations, and the impresario business.
The minister's department oversees implementation of the copyright law in the country. Moerdiono was also involved in drafting the improved copyright bill, which was passed into law in 1987.
Indonesia has long been the target of criticism from Western countries for its failure to protect intellectual property rights.
Earlier this year, the United States again named Indonesia as one of the developing countries failing to provide adequate protection of computer software.
In his speech yesterday, Moerdiono said many Indonesians still believe that as a member of a community, one is entitled to enjoy and imitate someone else's creations.
Pirated products, he said, have found a strong market in a nation where people care more about the price of a product than its copyright protection.
"This has got to stop," Moerdiono said.
"Proper enforcement of the copyright law will encourage greater creativity in our people. Creativity is vital to our economic and social development," he said in a seminar at the Jakarta Convention Center, which was attended mostly by local recording industry executives.
The two-day discussion, which ends tomorrow, includes speakers from the United States, Indonesia and other Asian countries. It is being held as part of the Pacific Harmony program, which included a songwriters meeting from Oct. 25 to 31 in Bali. A two- day International Song Festival was also opened last night in Jakarta.
Djadjat Sudradjat, head of the Association of the Indonesian Recording Industry's anti-piracy task force said in the discussion that music piracy in Indonesia has reached an alarming level.
He estimated that about half of the 10 million to 16 million music cassettes sold in the country each month are pirated products.
Indonesian and Western songs are both victims, he said.
The perpetrators either copy the whole content of an album or make mixed cassettes with songs from various albums.
The first is a "counterfeit cassette", the latter a "pirated cassette", he said, adding that both are seriously undermining the music industry.
Consumers here, Djajat said, prefer to wait for the pirated release of a collection of their favorite songs.
Cassettes are duplicated both in Indonesia and overseas. But it is believed that pirated compact discs come from abroad as the only CD manufacturing plant in Indonesia, in Tangerang, is well supervised, Djadjat said. (jsk)