# Indonesian government wants to buy text book copyrights


![](http://swaramuslim.net/images/uploads/siyasah/buku_sejarah-02.jpg)From
the excellent [[i:boekoe]](http://klipingbuku.blogspot.com/) blog on
book culture in Indonesia, comes a [press
release](http://klipingbuku.blogspot.com/2008/02/pemerintah-beli-copy-right-judul-buku.html)
about the Indonesian government. I have translated it below (slightly
shortened):

> **The Indonesian government buys the copyright to textbooks\
> ***(From the newspaper Kompas, February 8, 2008)*
>
> The Indonesian government has decided to buy the copyright of
> textbooks for primary, secondary and high school. The purpose is to
> bring down the price of textbooks to a quarter of the current price,
> and make books accessible to people. This was announced by president
> Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in a press conference on the 6th of Feburary,
> 2008, after a meeting with the Department of Education, which
> discussed the evaluation of the program priorities of the department
> of education in 2005-2007, and their work program for 2008.
>
> 1200 persons from the education sector participated in the meeting,
> which was held in the Plaza Depdiknas (Department of Education) in
> Sudirman Street. There was also the vice president Muhammad Jusuf
> Kalla, ministers, governors, district heads and mayors from all over
> Indonesia, as well as headmasters, and deans of higher education
> institutions.
>
> According to the president, one of the problems in the education
> sector is the price of text books. Because the books are expensive,
> many parents are not able to buy them, which inhibits the learning of
> their children. An important step is thus to reduce the price of text
> books. “One of the ways we’ll do this is through buying the copyright
> and giving the production rights to other publishers, so that the
> price of books can be reduced”, said the president. This step is also
> intended to avoid monopoly within the text book industry.
>
> According to the president, the minister of education, Bambang
> Sudibyo, and provincial governments, have already been asked to follow
> up on this decision. The president added that the maximum prices of
> text books will later be set, so that there will be no more expensive
> text books. According to the president, the buying of copyright will
> happen gradually, according to the budget which is available. The
> target is more than 250 books. We hope that this can happen quickly.
> The Education Department will study the list of titles to be bought in
> detail.

I actually heard this about half a year ago, when I participated in the
World Book Day 2007 at the Department of Education plaza on Sudirman
(same place as this was announced), however I have not seen a written
source until now. I have the same thought in mind now, as I had then:
This is a very interesting idea, but we should really try to campaign to
have them adopt Creative Commons licenses for the material, and put it
online as well. This might not make a huge difference to Indonesian
school children (yet), but since they own the copyrights anyway, they
could make a huge contribution to projects like Wikibooks, Wikipedia
etc. And hopefully in the future they can also produce better quality
and cheaper teaching materials by adapting material from open resources.

I even sent out a request to the isummit mailing list to see if they
know of any groups promoting Creative Commons or open licensing in
Indonesia, but so far I have not come across any.

Stian