A STORY FROM ME, OR MAYBE SOMEONE ELSE

Plagiarism - claiming that someone else's writing is your own - is commonplace in Thailand and overseas publishers are largely oblivious because they don't have the ability to understand Thai or people on the ground here to check.
We've had two instances in the past couple of months where one of the country's 'leading' business newspapers has copied (translated word for word) stories from the English publication that we license in Thailand. The copyright belongs to the overseas publishers (even a Thai translation) and it was only because my staff spotted the story that anything was done. We pay for the rights to use this material so it's in our business interest to inform our overseas colleagues.
We've now turned this problem into an opportunity because we're now offering a monitoring and reporting service to a growing number of publishers from around the world who want to protect their copyright in the Thai market. When I was interviewing for reporters a year back I was amazed by the number who said their job was to translate and rewrite stories from global publications and websites. And these were 'journalists' working on some of the biggest and most respected publications in Thailand.
When I say that Thailand is at least 10 years behind (in terms of the media industry) the rest of the world I am not being disrespectful. I am being honest and speaking from my own experiences.