Microsoft wins more piracy suits

Microsoft wins more piracy suits

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Giant U.S. software company Microsoft Corp. has won a legal
battle against software piracy for the second time here committed
by four local computer dealers in the Central Jakarta District Court
on Thursday.

The court ordered PT Panca Putra Komputindo, Altec Computer,
HJ Computer and HM Computer to pay the plaintiff a total
compensation of US$ 4.7 million.

The verdicts were presented at 2:30 p.m. by the same panel of
judges, who in turn presided over the four separate trials. They
were Amiruddin Zakaria for PT Panca Putra Computindo, Saparuddin
Hasibuan for Altec Computer and Herri Swantoro for HM Computer
and HJ Computer.

"The American company Microsoft deserves to be protected by
the state as do local companies, since Indonesia has enacted Law
No. 12/1997 on copyright protection and the country had an
agreement with U.S. government regarding this", Herri said during
the trial of HM Computer.

"The accused has been proven guilty of illegally installing
Microsoft software Windows 1998 and Microsoft Office 2000 in the
computers it sold," he told the court.

According to the verdict, Microsoft as the copyright owner had
suffered financial losses because it had not permitted the
accused to install its software in computers they sold to the
public.

The judges rejected the defense from the dealers' lawyer
citing that software duplication was common here because software
prices were prohibitively expensive.

"This argument cannot not be used as a justification as
Indonesia has to be consistent in the application of copyright
law," Herri said, adding that the accused had installed the
pirated software intentionally.

However, the court rejected the demand of Microsoft's lawyers
that the accused publish an apology in local mass media here,
saying it was "asking too much".

The judges based their ruling on the assumption that each
company would probably sell two computers daily while the price
of Windows 1998 is US$ 599 and Microsoft Office 2000 is US$ 100.
The amount of compensation for the plaintiff varied, depending on
the date of establishment of each of the companies.

HM Computer, which was established on Sept. 28, 1998, had to
pay $892,050 while HJ Computer and Altec Computer were ordered to
pay $1,501,662 respectively since they were established in July
1, 1998. PT Panca Putra Komputindo had to pay the lowest amount
in compensation of $869,234 since it was established in November
10, 1998.

After reading the verdict, Amiruddin asked the lawyers from
both sides whether they wanted to appeal.

Microsoft lawyer, Justisiari Perdana Kusumah, said that it
depended on the accused; should they appeal, Microsoft would also
appeal.

Meanwhile, the dealers' lawyer Hermawi Taslim said that they
would appeal to the high court.

After the trial, owner of Altec Computer, Lili Kartawinata
expressed disappointment over the verdict since she insisted that
her company had not committed any crime.

"I think the verdict is not fair. They did not present any
evidence of the Microsoft software CD-ROMs during the trials,"
she said, claiming that Microsoft should sue software pirates not
computer dealers.

This was the second verdict on a similar case delivered by
Jakarta courts.

On Sept. 25, Microsoft won the case against computer dealer PT
Kusumo Megah Jaya Sakti, which was ordered by the West Jakarta
District Court to compensate the company US$ 4.4 million.