Film and Music Piracy in Indonesia

ABSTRACT Technology development has allow people in the world,especially in this case,Surabaya, to violate copyrights of music and films in many forms . This practice (Music and films piracy violation) is spread widely over Surabaya, largely consumed by citizens and poorly handled by the authorities. In this paper, we will focusing about why and how we as citizens should come to the solution for this case in relation to our Ideology (Pancasila) and our role as Indonesian citizens.

After that,I will also briefly explain about the relation between solving this issue to the impact of business world and our part as chinesse ethnicity in Surabaya. The purpose of this paper is to increase the public awareness about music and films piracy. This study will explain and gives proofs showing that music and films piracy is a form of a crime and should be stop to make Indonesia better off. CONTENT The world knows that when its about piracy,Indonesia is one of the highest piracy rates on the world (behind Vietnam and China in all Asia).

Based on the survey held recently by Hongkong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC), Indonesia’s crime in piracy has given severe damage on U. S content industry especially software and music Industry. The music industry suffer 95% overall loss of Indonesian market because of the piracy activity trough internet,mobile phone or in physical. Surabaya,as one of the biggest city in Indonesia also take a major part on this crime.

Altough there are no clear evidence about the number of the crime and the precise place where the crime has been done in Surabaya,It’s really clear that in this city Intelectual and Property rights are being violated most of the time. There are more than 30 stores,spread in big malls,which sells pirated music and films in forms of DVDs and CDs who sold thousands pirated optical discs,daily consumed by many citizens (without them realizing that their actions is a crime),and the authorities never investigate or even lay their hand on those stores.

The lack of concerns from the citizen and the weak protection of law from the authority are the main reasons why music and films piracy is still running and even growing in Surabaya. Then, why is it so important for us to solve this issue? One of the major reason is social justice,taken from our fifth principle of Pancasila (Keadilan Sosial bagi seluruh Rakyat Indonesia) which talking about justice in economic welfare for all citizen in Indonesia. As we all know,Music and films piracy hurt the social justice and treathen economic welfare of not only the creator,but also all of the worker in this industry.

For the creator, it’s really obvious, he/she is not receiving what they should receive. Suppose there are 100,000 copies of a single here in Surabaya, and 90% of them are pirated. The creator will only receive the royalty from the legal single sold in the number of 10% since the rest is pirated (while actually he/she should get the rest of 90%,it’s their right). And using the same example,let me explain the second impact on the workers of the industry, Everyone on the industry who also take part for the output.

Because of the piracy, the original copy sales will go down, which will force the output to go down since piracy has already taken place in the market and fulfill consumer needs. This will make the industry of music and films cut the workers since they are not necessarily needed (since they only can produce a little,they have no reasons to keep too many workers). And this unemployement can cause so many other severe consequences . The unemployed will have no money to afford education or even daily needs. They are forced to searched job outside music and films industri.

It’s probably okay for those who have ability in doing many kinds of jobs,including jobs that needed outside the music and film industry such as Cleaning service or costumer service,the chance for them to get a job outside music industry still high. But for those who only have talents and ability in music and films industry (since they were probably already being trained from the very first begining of their career), it’s gonna be hard for them to find a new job. Even if they get one, they’ll ended up with low salary because they simply doesn’t have any knowledge or experience in the new field.

This is not only can threaten ones life,but also his/her entire family. All of this will eventually effect the Nation Economy. Since they can’t afford proper education, the number of educated people will eventually decrease and in result Indonesia will end up with worse generation and there’ll be less chance for Indonesia to be fully developed in the future. Not only that, Piracy also gave impact on the input of the tax to the government. When people buying the original music and films, the tax is directly went along with the price. But if it is being pirated, it’s not anymore.

Less tax means ,less money in the government which actually will be used for the nation good. But because of the tax is reducing, the chance for the development to take place is also decreasing. Once again, it threathens the social and economic welfare of many citizen. And there is also one negative externality that I want to bring up. Music and fils piracy activity will kill the willingness for the artist to keep creating. It will kill their motivation to invent something new in Music and Film industry. Their creative outlet psychologically will shut down,and once again, it will be bad for the nation development.

When creative people stop being creative, there’s no more thing we can provide to the world. Previously,I have explain to you that piracy can give a really severe impact on National Economy. This has given us more reasons why we,as International Business Management students,have to stop the piracy action in Surabaya. In the future, there is a big chance for each one of us to join the international music and films trading or jobs that are related to both sides,Economic and Music and films. Once we’re there (in music and film industry), we will be in a big disadvantage.

Or maybe we’re dealing with other business sector. But whatever it is, we will always dealing with ideas and those ideas will always under treathen from intellegence robbery. By trying to deal with this one issue in our city now, we can use the experience and knowledge we get from solving the issue to defend our ideas in the future. But this issue is not only related to the fifth principle but also to the fourth principle (Kerakyatan yang dipimpin oleh hikmat kebijaksanaan dalam permusyawaratan perwakilan). Piracy occured can be because citizen of Surabaya are too ignorant when they choose their representatives.

Probably because they are amateur,simply don’t care,being bribed and so on,so they chose without really selecting the best from the candidates. By chosing , means that we basically give all of the major decisions for our region to them and when we chose the wrong person or representative (wrong means not the best from the options given), the chance for them to rule in a justice way will go downhill. Suppose that we choose a person based on the look,not judging based on the personality,backgrounds,achievements,perfomances in the past,etc. There is a big chance for him/her to do fraud.

Instead of banishing all the stores that sell pirated DVDs and CDs as it should be,he/she accept bribes from the store owners and gave them permissions to keep on their crime without being arressted or fined. If we really use our inner wisdom to use our part of democracy, things like this will less likely to be happened. To solve this,first,citizen should stop consume pirated music and films. We have to realize that downloading music and films from the internet,transfering music from one mobile to another mobile,copy music and films into CDs and DVDs are crime activities.

In order for citizen to realize this,the policy must act. Since the citizen would not fully convinced with the policy until being slapped, show the citizen that the authorities can punish them whoever violate the Intellectual and Copyrigths law. Increase the fine,increase the time in the prison so the citizens will be fully convinced that the law isn’t a joke. Increase the investigation activity,search to the all sides of the city,find those who violate and punish the severly.

In order for this to happen, all of the authorities and government bodies should absolutely transparent about everything. Indonesia has a really bad record about transparency about their progress on banishing piracy in Indonesia. Government note that from all the cases being handled in 2009 to 2010,Only a few cases brought to the court and being solved. Without the government transperancy,there is no way for banishing piracy. Not only that, the Surabaya Government should not give the license to the people so easily without trully investigate what kind of business the people want to start.

This way, the chance for the people who want to start illegal business such as selling pirated DVDs and CDs “legally”will be lowered. the government should also have to make all of the websites that could be a way to pirate music and films shut down,promote the sevice provider responsibility and cooperate with subject that can help government control the piracy trough mobile and internet. This will handle the Cyber piracy at least for a little bit. As for me,as a student,I can only convinced myself and my little surroundings.

I will stop using pirated music and films and convinced other people also to buy original copies. I will learn more about the impact of piracy and use my knowledge to convince them. I will also make a twitter,facebook and blog accountsto get started. I will start with twitter first since I can access it almost all the time. As I said before,I will enrinch my knowledge regarding to the piracy (the facts,the impact,etc) and share it. In order to get followers I will retweet my tweet from Indonesia Anti Piracy account with my own personal account so my followers can see.

My goal is at least 30 followers in the first month. After that,I will provide them with facebook account so they can share their thoughts and feelings then have a discussion. I really relying on the power of scosial media because as a student I’m powerless and there’s nothing big that I can do so why not start with the little things that I can access : Internet. Then after half years passed, I’m expecting there will be at least 100 people following my twitter and join the discussion on facebook page and the next step will be expanding to blog.

By creating a blog,I can reach more people out there whose active in bloging world and also by do blogging, I can provide much more,complete update and information about what’s happening in our world related to the issue. ___________________________ End ——————————————– [ 2 ]. Jwekes,Yvonne. “Media and Crime Second edition” . Key approaches to criminology . Sage Publication. 2011. London. [ 3 ]. IIPA 2012 Executive summary 301 :Indonesia. [ 4 ]. Recent Survey by Hongkong-based (PERC), International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) special report 2012 on Indonesia [ 5 ].

Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets, published December 20, 2011. Surabaya is listed as one of the city in Indonesia who has concrete hotspots that sell pirated materials [ 6 ]. Manually counted. [ 7 ]. UNESCO World Anti-Piracy Obesrvatory 2011. UNESCO website. Wed, 26 Dec 2012. [ 8 ]. Permani,Risti . “Developing a creative Economy” . Jakarta Post . November 1,2011. Statement by Minister Pangestu . Creative-based Business contribute about Rp 140 trillion to the United States (US$ 15. 73 billion). [ 9 ]. IIPA Special Report 301 : Indonesia “PIRACY AND ENFORCEMENT UPDATES IN INDONESIA”. 2012.