TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

Govt blocks illegal music-sharing sites

The Communications and Information Ministry has instructed internet service providers to block 22 illegal music-sharing websites in order to uphold creative copyright laws and save the Indonesian recording industry from substantial profit losses

Dylan Amirio (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Tue, November 24, 2015

Share This Article

Change Size

Govt blocks illegal music-sharing sites

T

he Communications and Information Ministry has instructed internet service providers to block 22 illegal music-sharing websites in order to uphold creative copyright laws and save the Indonesian recording industry from substantial profit losses.

Complaints of losses lodged by the Recording Industry Association (ASIRI) in October provided impetus for a recommendation made by the Law and Human Rights Ministry to the Communications and Information Ministry to block the sites.

In August, the ministry banned 22 illegal film-sharing websites following a similar petition made to the Law and Human Rights Ministry by the Association of Indonesian Film Producers (APROFI).

Among the sites blocked were international torrent giants kickass.to and thepiratebay.se, which now cannot be opened from Indonesia.

ASIRI member and Warner Music Indonesia managing director Toto Widjojo said that as of 2013, around 6 million music files had been downloaded from the 22 banned sites, causing artists and the music industry estimated losses of up to Rp 6 billion (US$ 438,000) a day.

'€œThat'€™s around Rp 2.1 trillion a year. We hope that the government'€™s preventive measures don'€™t stop with the blocking of these 22 sites,'€ Toto said on Monday.

Instead, the ministry said that the public should begin to lean toward using paid online music streaming services such as Apple Music, Guvera, Joox, LangitMusik, ArenaMusik, MelodiOnline and Volup.

Commenting on the relatively low reach of streaming services in Indonesia, the Creative Economy Agency'€™s head of intellectual property rights (HKI), Robinson Sinaga, said that there also needed to be more efficient ways of payment, as music streaming sites tended to require online payments for their services.

'€œASIRI had devised a payment system based on using phone credit as payment, but that proved to be pretty inefficient. As such, the agency will work with financial institutions, such as banks, in order to promote the use of online payment systems here,'€ he said.

Robinson added that the focus now was to find ways to effectively prevent intellectual piracy, pointing out that there had not been a single prosecution in Indonesia for such crimes.

Several artists also lauded the blocking of the sites, among them Irfan Aulia of pop band Samsons.

'€œMost people just see these sites as access points to music, without considering the consequences,'€ Irfan said.

'€œMost don'€™t realize the financial consequences that their actions have, perhaps because most also don'€™t realize that for every song they hear on the TV or the radio, someone'€™s got to be paid'€ he added.

Meanwhile, Heri Sutadi, an IT expert from the Indonesia Information and Communication Technology Institute, said that in order for site-blocking to be effective, the government had to be methodical in finding and blocking any replacements.

'€œThe efforts that have been made by the government haven'€™t been that effective, because new sites keep popping up, replacing the ones that have been blocked. It has to be a constant and persistent effort,'€ Heri said.

Blocking sites, he said, was also made ineffective by the ease of finding bootleg CDs and DVDs in shopping centers and markets.
____________________________________

Blocked music-sharing sites

laguhit.com, mp3days.net, weblagu.com, wapkalagu.com, iozmusik.com, lagu.in, carilagu.net, bursalagu.com, beemp3s.org, arenalagu.com, saranmu.com, tubidy.im, stafaband.info, memomp3.com, zinzhu.com,
mp3take.com, kumpulbagi.com, onlagump3.info, newlagump3.com, targetlagu.com, music-corner.info, musicxplore.com

{

Your Opinion Counts

Your thoughts matter - share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.