COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT ON ILLEGAL STREAMING SITES IN INDONESIAN LAW

BY: TARRA AULIA SHAFANNA

ABSTRACT
Piracy capping the industry's earning potential whilst also hurting the economy. Internet access
provides easy access to search anything. Internet had a positive effect also gives the negative
impact such as piracy on the online site. ​Copyright is the exclusive right of the creator that
arises automatically based on the declarative principle after a work is realized in real form
without reducing restrictions in accordance with statutory regulations. Copyright infringement
can adversely affect the creator, often copyright infringement makes the owner of the copyright
experience economic losses. In this case, of course, the protection of copyright law must be
upheld. Cinematographic works are films which are supposed to be protected by their copyright
rights, but in reality many do digital piracy and harm the copyright holder. The method used in
this study is a normative juridical method. This article discusses how bad impact of digital
piracy and copyright enforcement.

Keywords: ​Copyright Infringement, Piracy, Illegal Streaming Sites

A. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND DESCRIPTION

Technology advances make everything more accessible to do anything from home.

People used to go to the cinema and watched some actors delivering their lines on meticulously
constructed set. Now without leaving the couch, people can catch the latest Hollywood movie
on their gadget instead. Illegal streaming sites like LK21 or Layar Kaca 21, and IndoXXI are
more popular than ever right now, especially for Indonesians. Those websites stream thousands
of movies and television shows on a daily basis, for free.

A lot of viewers are breaking the law by streaming illegal copies of movies from these
illegal websites, not only violating copyright but also intellectual property laws. Copyright is part

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of Intellectual Property Rights which has the broadest scope covering science, art, and literature.
Copyright mean an exclusive right of the author vested automatically on the basis of declaratory
principle after Works are embodied in a tangible form without reducing by virtue of restrictions
in accordance with the provisions of laws and regulations.1 Copyrights are the exclusive rights
comprising moral rights and economic rights.2

This illegal streaming website reaps that much profit purely from high traffic from the
visitors, ads, and Google adsense. Based on data in 2017, the Histats website states that LK21
visitor data reaches an average of 8 million people per day. By calculating the number of
advertisements multiplied by the number of visitors, it is estimated that LK21's income per day
reaches 80 million Indonesian Rupiah. Meanwhile, an analysis from Alexa in 2019, IndoXXI is
ranked 32th as the most accessed site in Indonesia and it is estimated that this site can get around
20,000 US dollars per day or around 280 million Indonesian Rupiah. This illegal online
streaming business is certainly very profitable but when others use an intellectual property that is
protected by the copyright law without any permission of the copyright holder, just like a
robbery then this action is a form of violation and the criminal needs to be punished.

Based on the introduction above, the author interested to review the research with the title:
COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT ON ILLEGAL STREAMING SITES IN INDONESIAN
LAW.

B. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In the era of ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and ASEAN Economic Community
(AEC), IPR Protection, including enforcement thereof, has been one of the most sensitive issues.
In 2016, the Global Intellectual Property Center conducted a global survey about intellectual
property protection index, ranking the level of intellectual property and trademark protection in
those countries. Indonesia was placed at the 33rd rank among 38 surveyed countries, this report

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LAW OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA NUMBER 28 OF 2014 ON COPYRIGHTS, Article 1
2
Ibid, Article 4

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shows that intellectual property rights and trademarks in Indonesia have not been prioritized
enough by the government and lawmakers.

A senior researcher from the University of Indonesia’s Institute for Economic and Social
Research (LPEM FEB UI), Chaikal Nuryakin, made a study involving respondents between the
ages of 15 and 45. His study discovered that people accessed illegal films online or through
pirated DVDs because they had limited access to movie theaters. He also found that many
respondents were unaware that watching illegally distributed creative content broke the law.
Their method of engaging in piracy depended on internet speed as well as peer justification.
It has been acknowledged that there have been a number of weaknesses in the protection
of IPR in Indonesia, particularly in the area of enforcement. The Indonesian government has
demonstrated greater political will to improve the environment for IP creation and protection,
including through promotion of the country’s creative economy and creative industries. In 2014
the new Copyright Law (No. 28/2014) was enacted, which includes provisions for dealing with
online infringement and a higher penalty for piracy.
Cinematographic works included in the copyright are protected and regulated in
Copyright Law article 40 paragraph (1) letter m. Cinematographic work in Copyright Law is a
creation with moving images, it can be documentary films, advertisements, reportage or story
films or cartoon films made with scenarios.
Protection for the creators of cinematographic works is contained in the Copyright Law,
namely Article 9 paragraph (2) and paragraph (3) states that everyone who uses economic rights
as intended in Article 9 paragraph (1) must obtain permission from the creator or copyright
holder. and are prohibited from duplicating and using commercially without the author's
permission. Article 9 paragraph (1) of the Copyright Law contains the economic right of the
creator or copyright holder to publish, copy, translate, adapt, distribute, display, announce,
communicate, and rent. Thus if piracy occurs, such as showing on an online site without the
permission of the creator is already a violation of copyright.
Piracy online sites are also regulated in Law No. 11 of 2008 concerning Information and
Electronic Transactions (hereinafter referred to as ITE Law) explained in article 32, which is
about every person who intentionally and without rights or against the law in any way to change,

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add, reduce, transmit, destroy, eliminate, transferring, concealing an electronic information or
electronic document that is owned by another person or is publicly owned and is sentenced to an
eight-year prison term and a maximum fine of. 2,000,000,000.00 Indonesian Rupiah. Article 48
Paragraph (2) also provides protection, namely the act of recording while distributing, and also
receives a maximum of 9 years of criminal threat and a maximum fine of 3,000,000,000.00
Indonesian Rupiah. Protection in the ITE Law can be related to piracy of online sites because the
media used in recording a cinematographic work is in the form of cameras or recording devices
which are then distributed or distributed on online sites.
In dealing with piracy on online sites, the Ministry of Communication and Information
(hereinafter referred to as Kemenkominfo) in collaboration with the Ministry of Law and Human
Rights make steps to crack down on movie piracy sites, such as by blocking these sites so that
viewers can’t access these sites again. Nevertheless online hijackers also immediately change
their domain. Although the pirates change their domain, the government will swiftly close the
film piracy site, because the closure of this movie piracy site is a mandate from the Copyright
Law which regulates the closure of content and access rights associated with copyright
infringement in multimedia facilities. This movement obviously a brave steps and also a great
effort from the government since every time the illegal streaming websites are shut down, the
new sites they create will have lower page rankings, which will then reduce the amount of
revenue they can generate.

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 C. CONCLUSION

Piracy certainly capping the industry's earning potential while also hurting the economy.
Indonesian filmmakers have been battling against piracy since the 1980s when home video came
on the scene. One of the main factors in the occurrence of copyright infringement is the lack of
public awareness about copyright law enforcement. All parties should participate in order to fight
over piracy. We can't fight this overnight, or even over a few years because online piracy may
never fully be eliminated. However, through consistent enforcement, commitment and
collaborative efforts, diminishing its presence enough to the point where the practice doesn’t
hurt legitimate businesses is already a significant victory.

D. LEGAL BASIS
❖ LAW OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA NUMBER 28 OF 2014 ON
COPYRIGHTS
❖ LAW OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA NUMBER 11 OF 2008 ON
INFORMATION AND ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS