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Indonesia's darknet: Torrents, downloads, pirates & porn
More Indonesian consumers are thinking of the Internet first - and TV second, according to Aora TV director Guntur S
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More Indonesian consumers are thinking of the Internet first - and TV second, according to Aora TV director Guntur S. Siboro.
'My teenagers say TV is for old people. They prefer to watch their favorite US TV series from the Internet, because they can catch the latest episode almost on the same day of release,' he said at a recent conference on the development of the pay TV business in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, growth in the number of smartphone users in the nation means that more people are downloading videos.
The Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII) has predicted that the number of mobile data subscriptions in the nation will jump to 125 million by 2017, up from the current 60 million.
However, there are many piracy websites providing easy access to new film releases to download with no effective monitoring from the government.
Recently, the Communications and Information Ministry announced the establishment of a team to monitor the websites.
The intellectual property rights director of the Law and Human Rights Ministry, Ahmad M. Ramli, said the team was tasked with proposing the shutting down of the websites based on reports from copyright holders.
'The film industry is the most affected by the crime. Once a film is available for free download, no one will go to the movie. It's a slightly more grim situation compared to music piracy, because there is still a chance that people will buy the official source,' Ramli said.
Local streaming or file-sharing websites also come with ads for gambling and pornography, according to a study published by Paul Watters of Massey University in New Zealand.
Researchers gathered data from 100 piracy websites that specifically targeted viewers in Indonesia and said that 83.95 percent of the advertisements were for products such as computer malware, gambling and pornography.
'Policymakers, parents and educators need to be aware that the sex industry and online gambling sites specifically target torrent search and file locker sites for advertising their services,' Watters said in the study.
During a panel discussion titled 'Following the Money: Who is profiting from the growth of online piracy in Indonesia?' held by the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA), speakers said the government should establish codes of practice to protect intellectual property rights and young users.
CASBAA chief policy officer John Medeiros said he was surprised by the finding.
'Indonesia is a socially conservative country, and we did not expect to find such a preponderance of socially unacceptable services funding content piracy to use as a lure to attract viewers,' he said.
Joe Welch, the association's regulatory and antipiracy committee co-chairman, alleged that 'mainstream' advertisers were supporting piracy by placing ads on the websites.
Another panelist, Neil Gane of Motion Picture Association, said the research pointed to the dangers of pirate websites.
'These phenomena ' piracy, pornography, gambling and scams ' are all linked. They are part of the dark side of the Internet,' said the executive director of the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre.
Gane urged the government, advertisers, consumer groups and the technology sector to adopt global best practices in dealing with the problem.
'There are practical and reasonable solutions that can benefit Indonesian Internet users and help grow the Indonesian digital economy,' he said.
