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.