Regulations expected to curb discs piracy

Regulations expected to curb discs piracy

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government expects the recent enactment of a set of
regulations on optical discs will enable it to significantly curb
rampant piracy, which one estimate says accounts for about 90
percent of optical discs produced in the country.

The Ministry of Industry's director general for agricultural,
chemical and forestry products, Benny Wahyudi, said that
Government Regulation No. 29/2004 on high technology production
facilities for optical discs should substantially reduce the
estimated 320 million pirated optical discs, which come mostly in
the form of DVDs, VCDs, CDs and software products.

"Most of the legal loopholes for producing pirated discs are
now closed with the regulation," said Benny, adding that the
regulation was supported by two decrees, one by the Ministry of
Industry and the other from the Ministry of Trade, all of which
came into effect in April.

The rulings would require all the 150 optical disc producing
factories, of which about 140 are allegedly involved in some form
of piracy, to obtain specific operating licenses from the
ministry.

The factories also have to register their machines, stamp
factory identification codes on the discs they produce and file
quarterly reports on their production activities with the
ministry.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance -- a United
States-based industry group focusing on preventing copyright
violations -- cited the enactment of the optical disc regulation
as a positive sign in Indonesia's battle against piracy.

The IIPA estimated that 92 percent of movies, 80 percent of
music and 87 percent of software sold in Indonesia was pirated,
leading to potential losses of at least US$203.6 million to
copyright holders.

Due to the high piracy rate and lax enforcement of the
intellectual property laws, the United States Trade
Representative's Office has placed Indonesia in its Priority
Watch List since 1996.

The USTR has announced that it will conduct an out-of-cycle
review to monitor Indonesia's progress on intellectual property
rights, which could lead to a reclassification of its status.

The Priority Watch List, which consists of 14 countries, is
one step below the most severe category of Priority Foreign
Country. A country categorized as a Priority Foreign Country
could have its preferential trade benefits revoked. (002)