The Commercial Court of Jakarta has decided copyright infringement proceedings in the 'Soekarno' case - Indonesia's first ever application for interim injunction and subsequent infringement proceedings.
We wrote about the application for interim injunction (filed 7 January 2014) here. Proceedings were filed by the daughter of Indonesia’s first president Sukarno, objecting to a film about Sukarno that had been screening in local cinemas. The Applicant then filed an infringement claim with the Commercial Court of Jakarta which was decided on 10 March 2014 (HJ. Rachmawti Soekarnoputri v. PT. Tripar Multivision Plus and Ram Jethmal Punjabi and Hanung Bramantyo (93/Pdt.Sus-Hak Cipta/2013/PN.Niaga.Jkt.Pst)). The Claim has the same case number as the Application.
In the infringement proceedings, the Court decided that the Plaintiff HJ. Rachmawti Soekarnoputri was the author of the script but not the proprietor of copyright in the film. The Court found that the Plaintiff’s moral rights were not honoured, and awarded nominal material damages in the amount of 1 rupiah (around USD0.0001), as well as nominal immaterial damages in the amount of 1 rupiah.
The Court’s reasoning included commentary on establishing ownership of copyright in films. The Court reasoned that in Indonesia the producer of a film is the owner of copyright in the cinematographic work.
One of the Defendant’s exceptions to the Claim was that the pleading constituted ‘obscure libel’. This concept is often cited in defended proceedings, but not always appropriately. The Court provided a helpful definition of ‘obscure libel’ in this decision, explaining that it refers to a pleading that contradicts itself (and incidentally found that the Plaintiff’s pleading was not an example of 'obscure libel').
This is a rare decision where the Commercial Court has offered reasonably detailed commentary - perhaps because of the media attention the case has received thus far.