Only two weeks from now Zsolt and I will be off to Indonesia. Excited? You bet! I have been actually wondering about many things. But the main concern goes to the copyright issue there; whether it is still the same or it has changed. If you asked why—which I know you do, I must admit that Indonesia was a haven for piracy. Please have a look at these pictures:

Those are not very difficult to find in Indonesia, be it in big cities or smaller towns. Street vendors also offer pirated CD, DVD and computer software which can be fifty percent cheaper than the original. In schools, students chose to photocopy books since they could not afford the new ones. I am not saying I support piracy, but in some cases those people would have never survive without it. We are entering a grey area there. I still remember, in 1998 I lived from USD 15 each month. And a text book cost that much. Luckily, photocopying manuscripts were not illegal. Or else, I would have never graduated.

After the economy crisis hit the whole Asia in 1997, no doubt many people lost their job. Some then tried their luck in entrepreneurship. One of the easiest ways was to open VCD, computer rentals and internet cafe—which became booming since than. Again, I am careful enough not state whether it was good or bad. It was an effort to make ends meet nevertheless. Go ahead ask them about copyright. I would not be surprised if they asked you back: “Mister, wot is dat? Is dat delisius?” I know (I hope) they have developed since then. But how far, I cannot tell—yet.

However, in the other part of the world, things have really changed. I know that the action of The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is nothing more than old news. But heck, I’m still telling you anyway. Last year the RIAA filed a suit to 83-year-old Gertrude Walton because she allegedly served up over 700 songs onto peer-to-peer networks. The blunder was that she had actually died in December 2003.

Well, the granny might be lucky for that. Otherwise, this quote will explain what could have happened to her:

‘ For example assaulting a police officer will get you five years, downloading child p0rn will get you seven years, assaulting without a weapon will get you ten years and aggravated assault six years.

‘ ‘ So in other words if you copy a Disney CD and sell it you will be in the same league as a paedophile who is distributing pictures of sexual attacks on children.

‘ ‘ If you copy Craig David’s CD you get ten years, but if you punch him in the face and pummel him into a seven day coma you will only get six. You are more likely to get the respect of the prison population with your six year sentence as well.

The law seems to know no limit. In 2003, a twelve year-old girl was sued for harboring an MP3 file of her favorite TV show on her hard drive. Instead of getting a compliment for working out the process, her working class parents in New York were forced to pay two thousand dollars in a settlement. The most recent case is when a family with no computer and internet connection was suit for internet file sharing.

In the beginning of April, it was said that the Hungarian parliament was discussing a new bill to legalize file-sharing. Such a bill was turned down in France before, so why did some people secretly hope it would come true? It eventually turned out to be nothing more than a bad prank for April fool’s day, folks. A francba!