Stiffer sanctions on book piracy urged
JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta branch of the Association of Indonesian Publishers (IKAPI) called on authorities and courts yesterday to impose heavier sanctions against book piracy.
The association's head, Bakri Junus, said that authorities should act consistently against book piracy because it has inflicted great losses to publishers.
"Publishers have suffered financial losses. Courts leniently sentence those who pirate," Bakri said.
The association will hold the Jakarta Book Fair from June 14 to June 22 in Senayan. Committee chairwoman, Kartini Nurdin, said the theme of the exhibition was "Reading is Fun". The exhibition which falls during the annual school holiday is aimed at stimulating the younger generation's reading habits.
"At the book fair, we'll have a special stand displaying pirated books," Bakri said, adding that a team specially set up to combat book piracy would hold a seminar on copyrights.
The seminar will be attended by authorities, public prosecutors, lawyers, publishers and other government officials.
Bakri aired his disappointment that some officials had not acted consistently in punishing perpetrators since, under existing laws, book piracy is considered a serious crime.
The heaviest punishment dealt out was in 1988 when an offender was sentenced to 2.5 years and was charged Rp 30 million for illegally reprinting books. In 1993, another perpetrator in Surabaya, East Java, was jailed for six months for illegally reprinting 42 best-selling titles, including text books.
Last September, a man was arrested in Bekasi, West Java, for reprinting 13 books.
Piracy is not prominent in Jakarta because most illegal printing companies are located outside the city, the association said.
"Not many authorities know much about copyright laws and sometimes even judges cannot distinguish the differences between a publishing and a printing company," said Aris Buntarman, the association's deputy. He added that the number of pirated books had increased markedly, which discouraged publishers to produce quality books.
Aris, who is also promotion manager at publishing house PT Gramedia, called on publishers to consolidate themselves in fighting piracy.
IKAPI has 522 members, with 262 of them in Jakarta, because the capital has the biggest market for books.
State-owned publisher PT Balai Pustaka so far has lost Rp 125 billion (US$51.2 million) over book piracy, according to recent news reports.
An executive from a publishing company in Ciracas, East Jakarta, said he had found an effective way to counter piracy by using different layouts and setting new sizes for the textbooks he produced.
Gramedia's best-selling English-Indonesian and Indonesian English dictionaries by John M. Echols and Hassan Shadily, were among the easiest targets of piracy. Aris said that Jakartans could easily spot the fakes sold by vendors at traffic lights. "I bet 99.99 percent of those dictionaries offered at traffic lights are pirated," he said.
"But piracy should not discourage writers from publishing their works," Aris said, adding that the Jakarta Book Fair was the best place to promote their works to the public and publishers. (10)