Video pirates find smooth sailing in Indonesia
Joko E.H. Anwar, Contributor, Jakarta
Though no authentic survey has ever been undertaken, it is clear that Indonesia has become a safe haven for video piracy.
Take a stroll around Glodok in West Jakarta, the Blok M shopping area in South Jakarta or any pedestrian flyovers across major thoroughfares, where you will commonly find vendors defy the scorching sun and lay out scores of pirated VCDs, ranging from karaoke, the latest cinema releases and pornographic material.
The movie crew at Kalyana Shira film production company are angry with "entrepreneurs" who make money by pirating videos, but sadly there is not enough legal enforcement against the producers.
Bootlegged VCDs of the company's big-budget film, Ca Bau Kan, are easily available, even while the film is still showing at movie theaters.
The film's publicist, Reita Malaon, told The Jakarta Post that piracy has allegedly caused huge losses to the company as it has robbed them of a huge potential audience.
"It's difficult to estimate the figure, but we have lost our middle-to-lower-income moviegoing market, because they rather buy (bootlegged) VCDs, which are cheaper," she added.
The film, which cost Rp 5 billion to produce, has, as of late April, not broken even yet. Reita said the film had only attracted an audience of 200,000 so far.
Since it is not easy to find how much a local film earns, one can only estimate it by multiplying the average price for a movie ticket by the audience figures.
The Kalyana Shira film company is so upset they even held a discussion early in April at Planet Hollywood Restaurant in South Jakarta to find a solution to stop the proliferation of video piracy in the country.
They invited officials from the Association of Video Importers of Indonesia (ASIREVI) and the Jakarta Police. Unfortunately, nobody from the police showed up.
Even though it is not fair to blame the movie's unsatisfying performance at the box office solely on piracy, the illegal activity has certainly made a significant contribution to it.
Bootlegged VCD copies of teen drama Ada Apa dengan Cinta? (What's Up with Cinta?) were also in circulation shortly after the film premiered at theaters.
Despite some losses due to piracy, the film, which cost Rp 3.7 billion to produce, performed very well at the box office, attracting an audience of 1,650,000 by the end of March and is still counting.
Riri Riza, who directed Petualangan Sherina (Sherina's Adventure) and co-produced Ada Apa dengan Cinta? also condemned the illegal activity.
"Video piracy actually cons people," Riri told the Post in a recent telephone interview.
Riri elaborated that bootlegged VCDs lure people with decent- looking covers but the picture and sound quality of the pirated copies were very poor.
Those who have bought pirated VCD copies of Ada Apa dengan Cinta? should feel cheated as the copies do not show the entire film.
It finishes about two thirds of the way through. Some, even include ridiculous explanations of what appears in the rest of the movie!
This is probably because the person taping the picture directly from the movie theater screen using a handheld video camera ran out of batteries.
A similar thing also happen to bootlegged VCDs of Ca Bau Kan. Several minutes of the movie's beginning is not shown and the rest of the movie is of very poor quality.
"Those who bought pirated VCDs have caused a loss to themselves because they aren't able to experience what they could get if they watch films at theaters," director Rizal Mantovani said.
Horror hit Jelangkung, which was co-directed by Rizal, was also pirated on VCDs while the movie was still being shown at theaters.
The fact that people still buy poor quality pirated videos is a phenomenon in many Asian countries, including Indonesia.
Ever since the VCD was invented in 1993 by electronics company Philips, in conjunction with JVC, the format quickly became popular in Asia.
VCDs are much cheaper to produce and movies are easier to duplicate using this format compared to other formats such as VHS.
After VCD players began to be massively produced a few years ago, more people became able to afford video players, even lower income earners.
However, the quality of movies in VCD format is still lower than those available in other formats.
VCD resolution is about the same with, often below, Video Home System (VHS), which is about 300 horizontal lines. Laser discs provide 425 lines, but Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) tops the type with 540 lines of resolution.
This is why VCDs have taken a long time to become popular in countries where audiences are more demanding about sound and picture quality, such as the U.S., after DVD was invented by nine big companies including Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba in September 1995.
However, we are yet to be able to say the same thing about local audiences, as pirated VCD vendors such as those in Glodok are still enjoying good business.
The other factor that makes this country a good place for video piracy is that there are limited titles of movies available on authorized videos.
A 26-year-old movie buff, who requested anonymity, told the Post that he often bought pirated VCDs because he could not find authorized versions of most titles.
"I watch many kinds of movies, but in this country I can only find them on pirated VCDs," he said, adding that he was delighted because he has just found a bootlegged copy of the controversial Japanese movie Battle Royale.
"But I will never buy pirated VCDs of Indonesian movies. Never. I want the local film industry to grow and I must support it by not buying bootlegged copies," the film buff added.
The newly revived local movie industry surely need a helping hand from many parties, including the police. If they can not totally stop video piracy, at least they should be able to provide legal protection to locally produced films.
Reita said that it would be easy for the police to capture the party responsible for pirating Ca Bau Kan on VCDs if they wanted to.
"All they have to do is trace the distribution of the pirated VCDs, starting from the retailers," she said.
However, Reita and other people in the film industry are yet to be satisfied by the police response to this matter.
When contacted by phone, city police spokesman Sr. Comr. Anton Bachrul Alam did not sound enthusiastic about helping the local film industry.
"We have to deal with many other things, not just VCD piracy," Anton told the Post, adding that the police have arrested some VCD retailers and duplicators.
Anton also suggested people from the local film industry carry out their own investigations first, including finding the parties who committed the crime, so that they could then file a report with the police.
"Don't just talk about it," Anton added.
Anton's suggestion certainly sounds like a head-scratcher, because investigating a crime is surely the task of the police, isn't it?