The infamous Alexis Hotel, widely believed to be a hotbed of high-class prostitution in Jakarta, may find itself in legal trouble – but not for the reason most would expect.
Anyone familiar with Alexis knows that the hotel features karaoke rooms, and it has come to light that people may have been singing along to illegally-obtained tunes in Alexis last year (we didn’t think anybody used those rooms for actual karaoke, but there you go).
The Jakarta Metro Police say they may carry out an investigation into allegations that Alexis did not pay royalties on the music they featured in their karaoke rooms throughout all of 2016, thus violating Indonesia’s Intellectual Rights Law.
“According to the law, it’s regulated that karaoke companies must pay to use musical content,” said Jakarta Metro Police’s head of the Trade Investigations sub-directorate AKBP Imam Setiawan, as quoted by BeritaSatu yesterday.
It’s not yet known what sort of punishment Alexis could face were they proven guilty of stealing music.
In addition to this allegation, Jakarta gubernatorial candidate Anies Baswedan has pledged to shut down Alexis for good should he become governor. That might win him some votes, but certainly not everybody would agree with it. Though the Jakarta Tourism Department has insisted that there is no prostitution taking place in Alexis, incumbent Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama once said that “heaven on earth” exists on the hotel’s notorious seventh floor.
