Indonesian National Film Day

Today (30 March) is National Film Day - an annual celebration of Indonesian film.

National Film Day is celebrated on 30 March to mark the first day of shooting on Indonesia’s first feature film in 1950 - Darah & Doa (Blood & Prayer).  This year, a national campaign called "Ayo! Nonton Film Indonesia” (Let’s Watch Indonesian Films - see here and here) has been arranged, and cinemas across the country are offering a buy-one-get-one promotion for Indonesian films (see here and here).

The organising committee for National Film Day is also running a concurrent campaign called “Ayo! Stop Pembajakan Film Indonesia” (Let’s Stop Indonesian Film Piracy).  In this respect the film industry appears to already have had some success - there appears to be a general consensus that consumers should to stick to genuine copies of local films.  Unfortunately, many consumers think it is acceptable to purchase pirated versions of Hollywood films - regarded as already having generated enough income.

(anti-piracy posters from the “Ayo! Stop Pembajakan Film Indonesia” (Let’s Stop Indonesian Film Piracy) campaign)

Rotation of Commercial Court Judges

Indonesia’s Commercial Court is a semi-specialist Court.  It handles intellectual property and bankruptcy cases.  However, while this might create an expectation that Judges are technically skilled, this is not necessarily the case.  A program of rotation of Judges means that the bench often has limited IP experience.

The Chief Justice of the Commercial Court generally serves a term of two years.  Sitting Justices generally serve the Court for three years before being rotated out.  And this program of rotation is not confined to Indonesia’s five Commercial Courts (which are in Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Makassar and Semarang) - Judges can be transferred to the District Courts, High Courts, and others.  There are various training programs (both domestically and internationally sponsored) in place that seek to improve the specialist knowledge of the Commercial Court bench.  However, as long as the tenure of Judges in the Commercial Court is limited by this program of rotation, the programs will have limited effect.

Of course there are good reasons for having a program of rotating Judges, one of which is to reduce the susceptibility of the Court to corrupt approaches.  Rotating Commercial Court Justices among the five Commercial Courts only - so they could continue to apply their specialist knowledge - would appear to be an acceptable solution.  But as yet, there do not appear to be any plans to change the current system.

World’s most valuable brands

Brand Finance’s Global 500 2015 - a report on the world’s 500 most valuable brands, was released on 16 February 2015.

According to the report (see here) the world’s most valuable brand is APPLE, valued at USD128 billion.  IT/Telecommunications companies dominate the top of the list, with SAMSUNG, GOOGLE, MICROSOFT, VERIZON, AT&T, and AMAZON in next places.

The 2015 list does not include any Indonesian brands.  At last count, Indonesia’s most valuable brand was SAMPOERNA, valued at USD2.25billion (see our post here).  That fell shy of the last brand on Brand Finance’s Global 500 2015 list - AFLAC valued at USD3,145 billion.