KEEPING A WATCH ON THAILAND
The Office of the United States Trade Representative has maintained a 'priority watch' on Thailand in its annual report on Intellectual Property rights and enforcement. Thailand is one of nine countries on the highest watch rating (worst offenders), and this is despite comments earlier this year from Government officials who were confident the Thailand was doing enough to tackle the problem and be downgraded.
The report makes mention, not only of the music and software industry, but also book publishers and fake goods in sectors from auto parts to pharmaceuticals. "Pirates and counterfeiters don't just steal ideas; they steal jobs, and too often they threaten our health and safety," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said in a statement accompanying the report.
So what does this mean? Economic sanctions have been mentioned in the past. What will it take for Thailand's authorities to tackle this problem?
4 comments:
I said in the original post that the position had been maintained from last year. Actually the watch on Thailand has been increased, with possible trade sanctions being mentioned as one way to force Thailand to take IP issues more seriously.
The Thai government regularly makes a push to show how it's cracking down on counterfeiters. This usually results in it becoming difficult to find bootleg CDs and DVDs on Sukhumvit and Silom, and the closure of about half the shops in Pantip Plaza. The effects usually last roughly a month to six weeks, when things get back to normal.
Thailand (or China, or India, or any other place that has a counterfeiting industry)will not have effective copyright protection laws until the Thai people understand the necessity for those laws. No amount of political arm-twisting will bring about that understanding.
I think economic sanctions might work, or in terms of software how about allowing Microsoft (as an example) to identify and block the use of all counterfeit editions of its software? They have the technology to do it now. My guess is that would have an immediate impact.
When Thai companies start loosing revenue because their products are being stolen, I think we could begin to see some effort on the part of the authorities. Until then, it is simply a tit-for-tat issue.
The purpose of a law has to become real, not merely a chance for punishment, before it can be effective.
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