The Microsoft case

The Microsoft case

Although somewhat obscured by the specter of an anti-terrorist
war that is hanging over the world in the wake of the Sept. 11
terrorist attack in the United States, it is nevertheless no
exaggeration to say that the verdict that was passed by the West
Jakarta District Court last Monday constitutes a milestone for
jurisprudence that could have serious implications for Indonesia.

Much has been said and written in recent years about the need
to respect and protect what is known in the legal vernacular as
intellectual property rights, or copyright. Raids have been held
repeatedly by the authorities in Jakarta and other big cities to
confiscate pirated copies of music and video CDs, books and
computer software. The Indonesian government has even put its
signature on the international convention protecting intellectual
rights. All to little avail, it seems.

Never before, however, has an Indonesian court of justice
awarded an international company with victory in a case of
copyright piracy. Thus the West Jakarta District Court's decision
on Monday to order an Indonesian company to pay the American
software giant Microsoft Corp. a sum total of US$4.4 million for
installing Microsoft software in computers it sold to consumers
without license -- apart from placing a full-page apology in the
daily newspapers Kompas and Bisnis Indonesia and in the Info
Komputer magazine for seven consecutive days -- constitutes a
watershed ruling, not only because of the severity of the
penalty, but also because of its potentially serious implications
on practically all sectors of life in this country.

It is no secret that practically all computer users in this
country use pirated software, ranging from operating systems to
anti-virus software and a host of other applications, all or
almost all of them produced and released by well-known software
companies in the United States. It only needs a casual stroll
through one of the always-busy computer centers in any of the big
cities of Indonesia to convince oneself of this fact.

The reason for the popularity of pirated software among
computer owners in this country is obvious. While licensed
software can cost hundreds of dollars per copy and only used on
one computer or computer network, pirated copies sell for as low
as Rp 20,000 per copy, or the equivalent of only a little more
than $2 per copy -- a steal, even considering that one may have
to contend with a bug or two when running the program.

Another reason why officially licensed software is not popular
is the difficulty, for most Indonesians at least, of finding the
outlets that sell them. Quite a lot of customers would in fact
have little objection to paying a few hundred dollars for some of
the more affordable programs -- such as the professional versions
of some Internet download programs -- if only they knew how or
where to obtain them.

In any case, Microsoft's victory in this first stage of the
court battle -- an appeal by the loser, PT Kusumo Megah Jaya
Sakti, to a higher court is expected -- is a good reminder for
Indonesians of the importance of respect for intellectual
property rights. Surely the time has come for Indonesians to pay
heed to this particular issue. Besides computer software, music
CDs, films and books are among the industries that suffer heavily
from piracy.

On the other hand, however, we hope big and powerful
industries such as Microsoft will also keep in mind that the
current price they slap on their software is out of the reach of
by far the majority of Indonesians. In the meantime, companies
have to stay in business, the bureaucracy has to continue to run
and humanitarian establishments such as hospitals must continue
to serve the public.

It certainly would help if Microsoft and other giant
enterprises like it could introduce special prices to make their
products more affordable to people in the developing world. After
all, in the longer run, those companies too, as well as the
industrialized countries in general, would benefit from any
progress attained in the developing world. It would be their
contribution to the shaping of a better world.