Police, AGO divided on piracy eradication

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Mon, 03/24/2008 1:10 AM | Business

Prosecutions for piracy have remained low in the past year, despite positive feedback on an intensified police crackdown on software intellectual property rights violations.

According to records gathered by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) Indonesia between early March last year and the end of February this year, only four out of 70 end users charged with breach of intellectual property rights were prosecuted.

The main cause for the low rate, the BSA said, was the different legal understanding of intellectual property rights between the Police and the Attorney General's Office.

The BSA is an alliance of computer programming companies aiming "to promote a safe and legal digital world" through various means, including educating consumers on copyright protection.

Members include Microsoft, Adobe, Dell, Hewlett Packard and IBM.

"Based on our experience as expert witness in 70 cases on the violation of intellectual property rights, it is clear the two (Police and AGO) understand the issue differently," BSA representative Donny A. Sheyoputera told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

He said the AGO demanded the Police provided the CDs containing the pirated software that perpetrators used in the installation process.

"This prolonged the legal processes of those cases," Donny said.

He said police investigations tended not to focus on obtaining that kind of evidence because they considered the programs installed in confiscated hard drives alone as sufficient proof of violation.

National Police spokesman Ir. Gen. Abubakar Nataprawira confirmed the BSA's statement, saying legal processes for illegal software cases often took longer than expected because of difficulties in obtaining the requested evidence.

"Locating the pirated compact discs is difficult," Abubakar said, adding the Police and the AGO needed to meet and align their perceptions.

The International Data Corporation, a global provider of intelligence services in the information technology market, has ranked Indonesia as the eighth worst offender in software piracy in the world and the third in the Asia-Pacific region.

Companies found to be using illegal software in Indonesia are charged under the intellectual and property rights law, under which convictions attract prison terms of up to five years and fines of up to Rp 500 million (US$55,000).

The total losses caused by piracy in the archipelago were estimated at US$153 million in 2004, $280 million in 2005 and $350 million in 2006.

BSA said the rate of software piracy in Indonesia decreased from 87 percent in 2003, 2004 and 2005 to 85 percent in 2006, partly due to an intensified crackdown that started in early 2006.

Although most software manufacturers are foreign-based companies, software piracy also hurts local manufacturers.

One company affected was PT Andal Software, whose operating system GL failed to sell because of the low price of pirated versions of the Microsoft Windows XP operating system.

"There was no way we could compete with the more advanced programs produced by foreign companies that are pirated and sold for as little as Rp 20,000," president director Indra Sosrodjojo said.

In 2005, the company stopped investing in the GL operating system, then priced at Rp 1 million per installation, and shifted its focus to software for businesses.

"The country now has about 500 computer programming companies, but not one that I know of can survive the competition with pirated software," Indra said.

"Most, like us, just want to play it safe and design programs for businesses because they are more difficult to hack into and distribute illegally."

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