RI tries to mend image on intellectual property rights

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

President Megawati Soekarnoputri declared war against intellectual property piracy on Friday in a bid to help the country improve its battered position on the world stage.

Speaking on the second anniversary of Intellectual Rights Day here, Megawati underlined the importance of concerted efforts to combat violations against intellectual property rights.

"Many reports, especially from the media, show that the government has yet to implement adequate measures to deal with the piracy issue," she said.

Underlining the significance of establishing a special program to fight against such unlawful practices, Megawati reminded the audience that increasing piracy was a major weakness in the country, especially in trade negotiations with other countries.

Megawati made the remarks in response to the almost completely uncontrolled violations of intellectual property rights in Indonesia. The U.S. government has placed Indonesia among the most watched countries in property rights violations.

It is no longer a secret that practically all computer users in this country, for example, use pirated software, ranging from operating systems to antivirus software and a host of other applications, almost all of which have been produced and released by well-known software companies in the United States.

Besides being cheap, another reason why officially licensed software is not popular is the difficulty, for most Indonesians, of finding outlets that sell it.

Indonesia is also a haven for piracy in the entertainment business, in which it is common knowledge that at several trading spots in the capital people openly sell pirated VCDs and cassettes.

"The violation (of intellectual property rights) has created problems, not just from legal, economic, social and moral perspectives, but also in international trade ... as several countries confront us with the piracy issue in trade negotiations," the President remarked.

She reiterated that besides becoming the Achilles' heel of the country in international trade negotiations, increasing piracy would hamper people's creativity.

Indonesia already has law on intellectual property rights, which carries heavy sentences for violators. But its implementation has not been as good as it should have been, due to an absence of guidelines on its implementation.

The intellectual property rights law is currently undergoing revision at the House of Representatives.

Despite the various raids carried out repeatedly by the authorities in Jakarta and other big cities to confiscate pirated copies of music and movie VCDs, books and computer software, no major changes have occurred.

Therefore the decision by the West Jakarta District Court in September last year to order an Indonesian company to pay the American software giant Microsoft Corp. a total of US$4.4 million in damages constitutes a milestone for jurisprudence in the country.

Microsoft won its legal battle against the Indonesian company, PT Kusumo Megah Jaya Sakti, for installing its software on computers the firm sold to consumers without a license.

The giant U.S. software company won a legal battle against software piracy for the second time in October last year committed by four local computer dealers in the Central Jakarta District Court.

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.

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.

Meanwhile, Minister for Justice and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra said on Friday that the public still lacked an awareness of the importance of registering inventions or creations for patent or property rights protection.

He cited as an example that over the past 10 years there were only 29,951 requests for patents or rights, with 17,141 of them fulfilling the requirement to receive certificates.

"Should the public be more aware of the need to register its creations or innovations, it would be easier for the government to crack down against the act of piracy," the minister said in the speech.

Friday's modest ceremony at the State Palace was also attended by National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar.