Lately, Indonesia aggressively builds economic strength through creative industry. Unfortunately, creative industry still faces many challenges. Many creative products even become easy target of piracy. This shows that the pirates are no longer able to build brand equity to compete in the creative industry.
Those were stated by Director of PT. Aseli Dagadu Djogja, Ir. Ahmad Noor Arief, in the LPPM conference room, Tuesday (20/12) at a series of seminar on tourism held by UGM Center for Tourism Studies under the theme "The Role of Research & Development In Acceleration of Creative Tourism Industry Development: Opportunities and Challenges". As player in the field of creative industry, Ahmad Noor is concerned over treatment of some of products in creative industry. Many products are pirated, for example, for three months after the launch of Dagadu, many products resembling Dagadu products were easily found in the famous shopping centers. "Most of them even have branches in several big cities. The piracy mode for this kind of industry could use the same brand and design, or same brands in different design or different brands in the same design," he said.
Ahmad Noor is very concerned that local creative products without a brand are considered as common brand which can be pirated. This act shows that respect for the intellectual property of local crafters is questionable. Meanwhile, these creators actually have provided benefits to the community, and people are always waiting for their creativity. "It can be said that the creators have been responsible for fostering and caring for creativity trees, while their fruits are looted," he said.
There are many reasons behind the piracy to perform their action. Besides, the product can be sold cheaper than the original product, more accessible distribution and development of technology have inspired pirates for mass production. "The business risk becomes very low due to low production and overhead costs. Pirates certainly use low-quality raw materials and do not need to pay research and development," he said.
Consumers, especially those with a lower-middle income, do not want to bother. Not being able to buy the original product, they become potential market for pirated products. On the other hand, weak legal infrastructure is the main attraction for piracy. "In many ways, actually, pirated products really join the popularity of the original product to ease their marketing," Noor Ahmad said.
Therefore, the holders of the brand need to have Warning Strategy by announcing consumers that the original product has been counterfeited, or with Withdrawal Strategy by supervising and selecting distributors tightly. "We can also do Prosecution Strategy, where the holder of the brand forms a special team to conduct an investigation into the places where the manufacture of pirated products is," said Ahmad Noor, hoping for more intense cooperation among academicians, government and businessmen to address this problem.
Prof. Mudradjad Kuncoro, Ph.D added that creative industry uses intellectual property based on local wisdom to produce high economy. The contribution of creative industry to the Indonesian economy is quite high. Averagely, it gives added value of 6.3 percent of GDP amounting to 104.638 trillion rupiah. "This industry has managed to absorb the participation of workers at 5.8 percent, or about 5.4 million people," he said.