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local software maker has urged the authorities to increase the fight against piracy with consistent legal action, even given the hash Law No. 19/2002 on Intellectual Property Rights,already in place.

Putu Sudiarta, director of Bamboomedia, a Bali-based e-business and e-learning software maker, said Friday that while he appreciated the cyber crime law it would not make any difference without strict law enforcement by the police.

"Therefore, to counter it *piracy*, we protect our products with SMS-based activation," Putu said.

"It requires each user to send an SMS to activate the software."

Putu was speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of a national campaign against the violation of intellectual property rights at the Hotel Santika Premier in Kuta.

Putu added that if the law was upheld, he believed that local creative-based businesses in Indonesia would double from the 500 companies currently in operation.

Since 2003, Bamboomedia has created 180 software titles, which are distributed nationwide through Gramedia, Indonesia's largest chain of bookstores.

"Our software is priced from Rp 25,000 (US$2) to Rp 30,000, while the pirated versions are sell for half the official price," Putu said.

"The registered version is equipped with a hologram sticker," he added.

Meanwhile, secretary general of the Indonesian Anti-Piracy Community (MIAP) Justisia Perdana Kusumah told The Jakarta Post that the authority is taking action to stop piracy.

"In 2002, Indonesia ranked as the country with the third highest incidence of piracy cases, at 87 percent, while in 2008 we ranked 12th with 84 percent," he said.

"It shows progress."

In Bali, Justisia said that although he did not have exact data on the rates of piracy, he acknowledged that the local police had worked quite hard to eliminate the crime, which mostly targeted graphic design and architectural software.

"It is tricky to eliminate software piracy because common people are not really concerned about the product, unlike books or music, for example," he said.

"However, we should appreciate and maintain support for the authorities to fight piracy."

The secretary of the national team for protection against intellectual property rights violations, Andy N. Sommeng, said the team, in coordination with the police, takes strict legal action against software pirates.

The team has a program called "Mall Visits", which gives direct education about piracy to end-user; sending 20,000 letters of notification about cheap software to small and home companies; as well as free training for IT staff of small industries, Andy, who is also director general of intellectual property right at the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, said