Dwiki Dharmawan: When Musicians Are Not Considered Worthy of Accessing Credit from Banks

JAKARTA - The classic problem of Indonesian musicians who have difficulty accessing banking has been felt directly by senior musician Dwiki Dharmawan.

The bitter experience of finding it difficult to apply for a home loan in his youth became the foundation for fighting for the economic value of a musical work.

Back in 1989, Dwiki recalls the moment he had to desperately convince the bank that musical works had a value equivalent to other assets.

At that time, said Dwiki, the profession of a musician was not considered eligible to receive a loan because they did not have a fixed monthly salary slip.

"I tried to capitalize on what is now called Intellectual Property (IP) or Intellectual Property Rights (HAKI). At that time, no one understood, let alone in the bank," said Dwiki, quoting the latest episode of the HOME podcast on the Dewa Budjana YouTube channel, Tuesday, January 20.

Even though he finally managed to get credit after a long presentation, Dwiki realized the need for improvement so that the next generation of musicians would not experience similar difficulties.

"(At that time) there was no known profession of a musician, unless you worked at a label, had a contract, and had a monthly salary slip," said the 59-year-old musician.

"And I said, the salary slip is this (the result of playing music), and I pay income tax, it finally worked," he added.

This is what motivates him to be active in various musician organizations. According to him, the struggle is beginning to bear fruit with the existence of regulations that explicitly state that HAKI can be used as a fiduciary guarantee. However, its implementation in the field is still a major challenge.

"So in the end, after I had an institution, Farabi, everyone who taught me gave me a recommendation ... that this person is a music teacher, his salary is so much, and he is qualified to credit," he said. "Because I used to be so hard, so I want to nolongin."

The difficulty of musicians getting banking access was acknowledged by Dewa Budjana. Around the beginning of the 1990s, he intended to credit a house in the same area as Dwiki. Because he didn't get credit, he was forced to pay in full in advance.