Pirated CD vendors targeted in raid

Pirated CD vendors targeted in raid

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Police officers and officials from the Association for the
Indonesian Recording Industry (Asiri) raided nine stalls selling
pirated CDs and MP3 discs at Ratu Plaza shopping mall in South
Jakarta on Tuesday.

"This is part of our nationwide campaign to crack down on
piracy," the deputy head of the antipiracy division at Asiri,
Nedy Darussamin, told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the
raid.

Nedy said that police and Asiri would conduct similar raids at
malls and shopping centers in Jakarta and other cities nationwide
in the near future.

Although Nedy did not elaborate further, he hinted that Glodok
Plaza in West Jakarta was near one of the targeted places.

During the raid, 16 police officers seized more than 10,000
pirated discs from the stalls. Five officials from Asiri
witnessed the raid.

Police also took in several vendors, who did not resist
arrest, for questioning.

Nedy said that over the past two months, police and Asiri had
raided eight manufacturers of pirated CDs and MP3 discs across
the capital, including in Dadap, North Jakarta, and an
undisclosed place in Tangerang, Banten.

Meanwhile, Asiri general manager Arnel Affandi estimated that
rampant piracy in the country had caused losses of up to Rp 17
trillion (US$2 billion) to the recording business last year.

He said he regretted the police's failure in addressing the
piracy issue.

"In fact, we would like to conduct raids every day, but of
course, we have to face the fact that the police cannot easily
deploy its personnel to do that because of their other
priorities," Arnel told the Post.

Arnel said that Asiri had identified at least 40 manufacturers
of pirated CDs and illegal copies of MP3 discs in the city.