Legal Literacy - Copyright law in Indonesia does not specifically regulate the originality requirement of a creation. Its implementation depends on doctrine and practice.

Creation and Originality

In the classic theory of copyright law, copyright protection only applies to a creation if it is "original." Original means authentic, so an original creation is an authentic creation. Furthermore, an original creation demonstrates the creator's creativity at a certain level.

The originality requirement is very important. Together with the "fixation" requirement, this requirement emphasizes the real existence of the creation as a condition for the creation to be able to receive copyright protection. However, fixation emphasizes form, while originality emphasizes aesthetics.

Interestingly, copyright law in Indonesia, especially as stipulated in Law Number 28 of 2014 concerning Copyright (“Copyright Law”), does not explicitly regulate the originality requirement of a creation. This is different from the fixation requirement, which is clearly regulated in Article 1 number 3 and Article 42 letter a of the Copyright Law.

The originality requirement of a creation can be found through the definition of creation in Article 1 number 3, specifically in the phrase “… which is produced based on inspiration, ability, thought, imagination, agility, skill, or expertise…”. Collectively, this phrase can be considered “creativity.” As a result, creativity in the Copyright Law is related to the originality of the creation.

Why is originality related to creativity? Because creativity becomes the trigger for creators to make unique creations that do not belong to other people. Creativity encourages creators to realize creations so that they become something special. After that, the creation has an original nature. We can say that an original creation is born based on the creator's creative power.

The creator's creativity, which triggers the birth of an original creation, also shows the creator's independence. Here, the creator is considered an independent person. He is able to use his mind and feelings independently to form a new and unique creation, so that in the future, he will be recognized as a pioneer who formed the creation.

As a result, the originality of a creation contains at least 2 elements, namely the creativity and independence of the creator. These two elements are cumulative – if one of them is not fulfilled, the original nature of the creation is also considered unfulfilled.

On the one hand, it is impossible for a creation to be original if it only relies on creativity and its creator is not independent. A creator who is not independent means a creator who needs help from other parties to realize the creation. If this happens, the level of creativity of the creation is questionable: how far is the portion of creative power between the creator and other parties to realize the creation? Please remember that this is a different issue from the phenomenon of joint authorship or types of creations formed by more than 1 creator.