Police raid centers of pirated VCDs

Police raid centers of pirated VCDs

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

City police confiscated on Thursday more than 160,000 pirated
CDs, VCDs and DVDs from stores and warehouses in Mangga Dua Mall
and Ratu Plaza, two of the biggest areas for pirated discs in the
capital.

Jakarta Police special crimes unit chief Sr. Comr. Syahrul
Mama said on Friday police were tracking down the owners of the
stores and warehouses after officers questioned employees.

"We will question them to find out where they got the pirated
discs. After that, we will raid the factories that produce the
discs. We suspect the discs are being produced outside Jakarta,"
Syahrul said.

In Mangga Dua, police confiscated around 59,000 pirated discs,
including more than 5,000 pirated adult movie titles, while in
Ratu Plaza, police took 100,000 discs, including 10,000 adult
movie discs and software CDs.

Syahrul said the raids were part of a program to crack down on
the sources of pirated discs that are widely sold across the
capital.

He acknowledged, however, that it would be difficult to stop
pirated discs from entering Jakarta.

Jakarta has long been known as a haven for pirated discs which
are sold openly in markets across the city.

Earlier, police raided Glodok, the biggest retail center for
pirated discs in West Jakarta and confiscated hundreds of CDs,
VCDs, DVDs and adult movies.

Several days later, however, Glodok was back in business.

A pirated disc retailer in Glodok said recently that sellers
were regularly paying money to local police so they could
continue to do business.

"Every day police officers from the West Jakarta and Taman
Sari precincts come here to 'control' piracy, but they do nothing
to us. The boss has take care of them. Look at those two men
there, they're officers from the Taman Sari Police precinct," he
told The Jakarta Post, while pointing to a man talking to a disc
seller.

Asked why police never raided street vendors selling pirated
discs on busy streets, bus terminals and railway stations,
Syahrul said police were cracking down on the big fish first.

Law No. 8/1992 on film copyrights and Law No. 19/2002 on
intellectual property rights stipulate that pirates and sellers
can be punished with a maximum of three years in prison.

Around two million pirated CDs, VCDs and DVDs are circulated
across the country every day, with an average price of Rp 3,000
to 15,000 apiece.