Piracy is now a massive issue in Indonesia

According to the Jakarta Globe in the middle of last month, Indonesia’s film industry loses up to Rp 437.5 billion (RM132,072,316) each year.

That is close to twice as much as the Malaysian film industry made last year (RM74,611,454).

Indonesia’s own Film Producers Association (APROFI) arrived at the total through a study which highlighted that each pirated film loses up to Rp4.3 billion (RM1,298,082).

Making things worse in the massive country is the fact that the film industry also has to deal with illegal television channels which can host “up to 100 pirated films”.

Coincidentally, around the same period the report was drawn out, a study was also done on the Indonesian music industry.

Results were shocking: The Jakarta Post revealed that 95.7 per cent market share over the period from 2007 to today has caused the industry losses of Rp4 trillion (RM1,236,388,500) annually.

This was reached through 2013 data from the Indonesian Association of Artists, Singers, Composers and Recording Businessmen (PAPPRI).

Indonesia has one of the biggest music industries in Southeast Asia behind only Thailand in terms of retail value as of 2010, based on legal sale of music albums, DVDs and VHS cassettes. Hence, imagine if all its sales were legal: we could be looking at one of the top, biggest music industries in the world!

To solve the issue, both the film and music industries are looking at several options.

Indonesian actress Marcella Zalianty wants the National Police to get involved in the fight against piracy.

Intellectual rights must become a priority. We must work side by side because we filmmakers are not investigators, and we spend most of our energy creating films which are a national treasure. Shock therapy is not only for drug dealers and terrorists.

— Jakarta Globe

Head of the Creative Economy Body (Bekraf), Triawan Munaf, brought up the possibility of having more cinemas — much like Malaysia, Indonesians are usually faced with no option but expensive chains found exclusively in malls.

There have been suggestions that the Indonesian government allow foreign investors to install low-cost cinemas in order to reach a wider audience.

As for music, the Anti-piracy Taskforce is looking into an alert system for online piracy that will take effect from January 2016 onwards.

The new system will provide users who try to download illegal content with notifications that inform them about the law and all the repercussions they could face.