Students concern prices of paper

Students concern prices of paper

From Kompas

The government has recently organized cheap markets for the
nine basic commodities in order to help alleviate the burden on
people in the lower income brackets.

Students, however, find it difficult to easily meet their
secondary needs as prices continue to skyrocket. These price
increases usually come unexpectedly. The following is an
illustration:

Paper: Scrawling paper, previously costing Rp 4,000/ream, now
costs Rp 10,000/ream. A4 paper of medium quality now costs Rp
16,000-Rp 19,000/ream, the previous prices being Rp 6,000-Rp
8,000. A4 paper of prime quality has gone up in price from Rp
11,000/ream to Rp 23,000/ream. The average increase is 137.32
percent.

Ink: HP is the point of reference. Type 51629 A used to cost
Rp 59,500, then US$21.41. Now it costs Rp 298,000, an increase of
400.8 percent. If you purchase both black and colored ink, the
money you spend is more than what you have to pay for a printer.
As a result dot matrix printers are in high demand again now.

Photocopies: One photocopy used to cost Rp 20-Rp 35. Now it
costs Rp 40, an increase of about 100 percent.

Some of my friends, who used to fully honor the intellectual
property rights of textbook writers (foreign or otherwise) now
greatly hope that these writers will magnanimously let them
photocopy the publications.

After contacting my friends in other cities like Yogyakarta
(where prices are lowest) and Jakarta (where prices are highest),
I found that Bandung still belongs to the category of city where
prices are relatively low.

The problem of high prices and price increases may not matter
at all to well-off students. But to me and others, who are not in
the well-off category, the problem concerns our budget,
especially about fulfilling our basic needs. Therefore, through
this forum, my friends and I, who are in the same boat, wish to
apologize for being compelled not to honor intellectual property
rights. Indeed, we must prioritize the benefit principle over the
legality one.

It is my hope that these grudges will not give another
headache to our leaders in Jakarta.

K. MOHAMMAD KAUTSAR

Bandung, West Java