Indonesia 'has no law on domain name'

Indonesia 'has no law on domain name'

JAKARTA (JP): A businessman who is being prosecuted for
allegedly illegally registering the domain name of Mustika
Ratu.com, asked the court on Thursday to drop the case as the
country does not have any legislation governing the matter.

The Central Jakarta District Court should drop the case
against Tjandra Sugiono, 32, a former general manager of
international marketing firm PT Martina Berto, his lawyer, Didi
Irawadi Syamsuddin, argued before the court.

"This is the first domain-name case in the country, so the
prosecutor should have explained what a domain name is and the
positive law that covers the matter," the lawyer said.

He argued that Tjandra could not be tried under the Criminal
Code or the Antimonopoly Law for registering the domain name,
which uses the same name as that of PT Martina Berto's rival, PT
Mustika Ratu.

Prosecutor Suhardi charged Tjandra last week with fraudulent
competition for registering Mustika Ratu.com with Network
Solutions in the United States in October 1999 when he was
assigned by his company to develop its markets abroad.

Tjandra's lawyer told the court on Thursday that the
indictment was ambiguous as the prosecutor had not written the
domain name correctly. He said that the name Tjandra registered
was mustika-ratu.com, instead of Mustika Ratu.com as written by
the prosecutor.

He said that the issue of a domain name was more concerned
with civil law and should not be heard in a criminal court.

He also argued that the case should not be tried here, but in
the United States.

The trial will resume next week. (04/sim)