New laws target piracy (Thailand)

[quaxo]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/economics/16041/new-laws-target-piracy

Interesting little article about some new anti-piracy laws in Thailand. I, for one, am glad to see this. However, this isn't the first time they've had a crackdown on piracy, but in the past they've never gone after the landlords of the properties.

Raids on shops often fail. Word that they're coming gets 'leaked' (often much in advance) and when the police arrive, the shops are either closed down for the day or the pirated materials have been moved off-site. There's a lot more to that end of it, and I won't go into it as it involves a lot of speculation and rumor.

An explanation of some of the places mentioned in the article:
Pantip Plaza - (a.k.a. Computer City) - Every computer nerd's fantasy... a six-floor shopping mall of nothing but electronics, computers, and software... and then some (I got my new guitar here ). Probably the cheapest place in Thailand to get anything about computers (except straight from distributors). From whole computer systems to the smallest part inside a computer... if you need it, chances are someone there sells it. There are literally hundreds of shops and service centers for various companies located in Pantip (Seagate, Acer, Dell, and many many others have their main service centers for Thailand here).

MBK Center - MBK is short for Mahboonkrong (the developer's parent's names put together). It is one of the oldest and (at one time) largest shopping malls in Asia. Located in one of the busiest shopping areas in Bangkok where the are 4 shopping malls around the Siam Square intersection (MBK, Siam Discovery, Siam Center, and Siam Paragon). It has 8 floors in the shopping area and hosts thousands of shops. Most of the 3rd floor is dedicated to mobile phones, electronics, and computers.

The other areas mentioned (Patpong Rd. and Sukhumvit Rd.) are tourist areas with a lot of vendor stalls along the roads, many of which offer pirated materials.

[Computer Hope Admin]

Nice to see the new laws on protecting copyrights, but still going to be up to the government to enforce the landlords to follow them.

[TorrentIt]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/economics/16041/new-laws-target-piracy

Interesting little article about some new anti-piracy laws in Thailand. I, for one, am glad to see this. However, this isn't the first time they've had a crackdown on piracy, but in the past they've never gone after the landlords of the properties.

Raids on shops often fail. Word that they're coming gets 'leaked' (often much in advance) and when the police arrive, the shops are either closed down for the day or the pirated materials have been moved off-site. There's a lot more to that end of it, and I won't go into it as it involves a lot of speculation and rumor.

An explanation of some of the places mentioned in the article:
Pantip Plaza - (a.k.a. Computer City) - Every computer nerd's fantasy... a six-floor shopping mall of nothing but electronics, computers, and software... and then some (I got my new guitar here ). Probably the cheapest place in Thailand to get anything about computers (except straight from distributors). From whole computer systems to the smallest part inside a computer... if you need it, chances are someone there sells it. There are literally hundreds of shops and service centers for various companies located in Pantip (Seagate, Acer, Dell, and many many others have their main service centers for Thailand here).

MBK Center - MBK is short for Mahboonkrong (the developer's parent's names put together). It is one of the oldest and (at one time) largest shopping malls in Asia. Located in one of the busiest shopping areas in Bangkok where the are 4 shopping malls around the Siam Square intersection (MBK, Siam Discovery, Siam Center, and Siam Paragon). It has 8 floors in the shopping area and hosts thousands of shops. Most of the 3rd floor is dedicated to mobile phones, electronics, and computers.

The other areas mentioned (Patpong Rd. and Sukhumvit Rd.) are tourist areas with a lot of vendor stalls along the roads, many of which offer pirated materials.

My Dad Was In Thailand,
BangKok,
And Phucket,
Next Time He Goes Im Gonna Ask Him To Get Me Some Computer Stuff From That Mall

Thanks 

TorrentIt©

[evilfantasy]

Kind of makes you look at The Pirate Bay trial a little different.

Sharing the new hot game with your friends is one thing. But what about the hundreds/thousands of people out there burning hundreds of copies and packaging them in realistic looking cases, hologram included, and selling them below retail as "genuine"

Your innocent upload could be fueling organized crime...

[quaxo]

Your innocent upload could be fueling organized crime...

Actually, some of the things you find here aren't just copies from original CDs or downloads from the internet burnt on to CDs. One distinct case I remember was the movie "A Walk To Remember". That was available at pirate shops here 3 months before the movie even came out in the US. That could have only been possible from a studio or DVD manufacturer level.

This has been going on here since long before I moved here (12+ years). They way business has been conducted has changed though. For software, it used to be that they had properly manufactured copies of everything they sold, but it became troublesome to move/hide that much merchandise during raids. So now, they only keep copies of the covers on the premises. The ISO files for these things are all kept on a computer in the shop, then when you want to buy one, they burn you off a copy. If there's a raid, they just remove the computer that contains all of the pirated material until the raid is over.

Sadly, if it's like most anti-piracy laws here, it's just for show and won't get enforced.

[quaxo]

A related story. Police and vendors got into a brawl yesterday when 50 police held a surprise raid on about 200 pirate vendors in the Patpong area, a popular area for tourists in Bangkok. The vendors have also gone to a local police station and files charges against the officials for "assault and robbery".

News Article:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/16314/piracy-clash-in-patpong

About Patpong

[Computer Hope Admin]

Vendors attacked the officials with wooden sticks, glass bottles and stones. Some reports said guns were fired to scare off the officials.

Wow, I can see now why maybe there were scared of dealing with this.

[quaxo]

There's another follow-up article about this. They talked to some vendors about how they feel about the situation. On my mobile phone at the moment in a taxi trying to make my way across a rainy Bangkok. I'll find it later.