TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – President Jokowi has pledged to eradicate piracy in the music industry and ordered National Police Gen. Badrodin Haiti to take action against those who backed the crime.
“Piracy has been around for a long time and rampant, I read about it almost everyday, and this can be settled in one-two days’ time,” he said at the State Palace when meeting with representatives of the Indonesian Recording Industry Association on Monday, May 18, 2015. “Law enforcement should have been unrelenting,” he said.
Jokowi said piracy in the music industry had taken place in broad daylight, as evident in the sales of pirated CDs and DVDs on sidewalks.
The president also said the police had only touched the tip of an iceberg in combatting music piracy—that the police had only taken action against pirated CD vendors rather than the big players.
“It means that the big players are the ones that should be dealt with, not the ones selling [pirated CDs] on sidewalks,” he said.
“I don’t know if this is only my assumption, but are there people backing them?” the president asked, adding that music piracy was also rife on the internet.
Among musicians in attendance were Marcel Siahaan, Anang Hermansyah, Ashanty, Tantri Syalindri Ichlasari, Dwiki Dharmawan and Zaskia Gotik.
REZA ADITYA