O

ne year after blocking direct access to pornographic websites, the Communications and Information Ministry kicked off on Wednesday a campaign against illegal music downloads that could lead to prosecutions.

The process of curbing illegal downloads will include a six-month public awareness campaign.

“We will distribute stickers about the campaign in various places, such as campuses … We will also use Twitter and Facebook to inform people about the campaign,” minister Tifatul Sembiring said.

Following the public awareness campaign, Tifatul said, access to portals and websites that enable people to download music illegally will be blocked. The ministry will also charge those who run the portals and websites with violating the 2008 Law on Information and Electronic Transactions as well as the 2002 Law on Copyright.

He specifically mentioned 20 local portals currently in danger of being blocked immediately by the ministry if they continued to provide music for illegal downloads.

However, he said, the ministry would not block the portals if they heeded the ministry’s warnings. “A team in the ministry will continue to cooperate in browsing, searching and collecting the names of these types of portals,” he added.

Heru Nugroho of Heal Our Music, an organization campaigning against music piracy, said approximately 240 million songs were illegally downloaded every day, with each song valued at Rp 5,000 (59 US cents).

He added that trying to block portals or websites offering music for illegal download was a cat-and-mouse game given that a portal or website could change its address. Heal Our Music has also requested the cooperation of the portals providing illegal downloads.

“We have sent a letters to the [20] portals but they have not replied,” he told The Jakarta Post.

Several of the portals, such as gudanglagu.com, posted a letter to Heal Our Music on its homepage, saying that the portal was “a music search site, not a music provider site”.

“[We] have prepared space to distribute music that is legally paid for [but] we do not know where to find legal music. We could help with such a system. We are ready to sit down and discuss this problem,” the portal said.

Juny Maimun of online forum Indowebster said he was willing to work with the music industry. He added that there were many Internet business models from which the music industry could choose.