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.