Problems of the Creative Industry in Indonesia and How to Fix It
As a country, Indonesia is blessed with an archipelago. A thousand islands that are connected with beautiful water are brimming with unique cultures and biodiversity. This is a highly valuable asset for creative industries to thrive across Indonesia and one of the enabler aspects of welfare across the country. According to UNESCO, the creative economy is, “One of the most rapidly growing sectors of the world economy and a highly transformative one in terms of income generation, job creation, and export earnings”.
Putting a creative economy on the country’s agenda is considered new in Indonesia, where the first government involvement and creation of a creative economy blueprint began in 2006. But compared to South Korea, where the blueprint was first published in 2013, the effect of its seriousness toward creative industry potential on its economy and global influence can’t be more drastic.
Six strategies of South Korea cover financial compensation and creation of the ecosystem, empowering SMEs, creating enablers for growth in new markets and new industries, fostering resilient creative talents, strengthening innovation in science and technology, and lastly, promoting the creative economic culture with its people.
If we reflect the current Indonesian creative industry to those strategies, we have stumbled even in the first step. Compensation for creativity is a big problem that both the government and the stakeholders are contributing to. The rigid low pricing standards that government projects used, not to mention most of it are time-based prices, can be seen almost as creatives are being punished for being efficient and wanting to contribute to the creative economy. Also by not intervening in the industry practice for pricing and pitching, Indonesian creatives are competing to win as (literally) the most hungry people in the room.
South Korea’s Dongdaemun Design Plaza
The existence of a proper ecosystem is highly important to implement anything and help things grow in scale. What can we see in Indonesia is a limping, capital city-centric ecosystem. Part of it was caused by the long-neglected infrastructure development and unclear participation in the creative economy from the regional government. Even Though Indonesian SMEs, as the main fuel of our creative economy, are mostly located in regions outside Jakarta.
The holy trinity of development is when government, industry players, and academics are linked to one another and participate in common goals and clear objectives. Unfortunately, in creative industries, often things are done individually which resulted in half-baked projects. Academics researched without an audience to put it to use, industry unethical practices are rampant, and governments are creating policies for no one.
These problems when combined with the blessed Indonesian archipelago are becoming even more problematic. Because the lack of connectedness between regions across Indonesia makes anyone who wants to thrive has to double the effort. It can be said that there are as many holes in the current situation of the Indonesian creative industry as holes in Indonesian roads. Some ways to fix these roads are of course by connecting the good part of the roads to one another. Those who succeed in doing so may thrive, such as Gojek and Tokopedia where they find holes and put a bridge on them. But the case of Gojek is an example where the holy trinity worked together, and the government was involved to help make way for the unicorn to thrive. Imagine if the old dispute between ridesharing cars and conventional taxis weren’t intervened, or area ownership by hyperlocal motor-taxi drivers prevents Gojek drivers from providing services in safety. The case of Gojek is different because we think it’s safe to say they’re not SMEs (at least any longer). What about the SMEs? Do Indonesian creatives need to reach a unicorn status to have the government paying attention?
Although patching the roads can be viewed as an activism stance from Indonesian creatives towards the situation, and it makes a huge opportunity for innovation, it’s not enough. In parallel, the government, together with the citizens, must help in creating a proper road as an enabler for Indonesian citizens marching toward a better future.
In what way? We thought that it’s important to truly establish a baseline or minimum for creative compensation and to create one that’s outside time-based compensation. We should start learning to value the intangible, or in the trending terms, the Intellectual Property that a creative produce. Because without such a standard even among creatives can start unhealthily battling each other over price.
Indonesian creatives are in discussion.
Ecosystems are needed in a more distributed and connected way. Each region may need different kinds of ecosystems depending on the maturity level of its creative industries. One region may need a special caretaker to publish permits and or licenses. Another may need a museum and a design training center.
Despite there being different levels of maturity across Indonesia, one thing equally needed across all levels is a platform to help whistleblowing plagiarism and a way to take action about a case. Because there are probably thousands of plagiarism cases that have cost us billions of rupiah loss.
These are just a few of many possibilities of how the government can work together with its citizens to promote its creative industry and prosper in the creative economy. But at the roots, all kinds of solutions also depend on the quality of its citizens’ character where citizens will fill places in the trinity of development and play a role. We’ve heard so much about character-building education in the past decade. The question now left is, would it be fruitful?