Southeast Asia’s licensing industry market is estimated to have reached more than Rp 140 trillion (US$10.4 billion). This demonstrates the licensing industry’s promising economic potential through rights sales of intellectual property, mostly comprising creative works. Apparently, creative works, such as music, film and books, have gained even more popularity among consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when they have limited entertainment or activity options while being stuck at home.

In Indonesia alone, rights sales from screenplay adaptations and even franchise brand usage from local books have shown great financial promise. Although data on the exact economic value of the licensing activities is yet to be available, there have been some really encouraging examples.

Just look at Si Juki, a comic strip series created by Faza Meonk that has already been adapted for screenplay by the same writer in 2017, or Indonesian writer Dewi Lestari’s novel Filosofi Kopi (Coffee Philosophy), which has also been adapted into a film duology by director Angga Dwimas Sasongko. Upon the great success of the screen version of the book, a coffee shop chain called Filosofi Kopi has also by now proliferated across various cities. The brand now even runs its own merchandise business line.

Recognizing the economic potential, the Jakarta Tourism and Creative Economy Agency, in cooperation with Katapel.ID, are organizing an event called Katapel Jakarta. The event, which runs from Dec. 20 to 23 in the Ritz-Carlton Jakarta Mega Kuningan hotel, will see a lot of practitioners giving some technical advice on creative industry players on how to commercialize their intellectual property through the licensing industry.

Jakarta Tourism and Creative Economy Agency acting chairman Gumilar Ekalaya said the training program sought to educate creative economy players on how they could also help accelerate economic recovery through the licensing industry.

The workshop also includes some materials on how to sharpen one’s global competitive advantage as a creative worker, as well as a reminder on the cleanliness, health, safety and environment standards that creative workers could follow when they conduct activities or events during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In collaboration with the Indonesian Intellectual Property Association, the Katapel Jakarta is present to directly support the artists and creative workers in general, all the while supporting the creative economy sector as a whole and boosting the sector’s competitiveness,” he said.

“We will train 100 Jakartans who work for the creative workers, whether making animations, games, comic strips, fashion brands, graphic designers, advertisers, etc. Hopefully, in the future, they can commercialize the intellectual property they have, putting all the technical skills they’ve acquired from the training program,” he continued.

Katapel.ID program director Robby Wahyudi conveyed his hope that the program could serve as an opportunity for participants to get to know essential aspects of intellectual property commercialization.

“We see this as a very important program; all this time, we have a lot of local creators who have intellectual property but have a hard time to commercialize their creative works. Through this program, brand owners can directly learn about the latest progress of the local intellectual property commercialization projects in the country, which has enough competitive advantage in the global arena. The forum is also part of our effort to create an ecosystem for the local creative economy players,” he said.

Local intellectual property creators and brand owners, the event’s organizers have already prepared these events to be accessible via Zoom. To join the event, motivated participants can simply register at bit.ly/daftarkjo2020. Limited spaces are available.

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