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.