PLAGIARISM IS RAMPANT IN THAILAND

The Bangkok Post had an interesting story on Sunday that highlights the problems of plagiarism in Thailand.
The story involves one book publisher who was apparently duped into publishing work by a new author which subsequently turned out to be copied word-for-word from a previously published work. Even though this wasn't a new work the publisher claims to have sold 800 copies of the 'new' book in the last two months.
The story quotes Risuan Aramcharoen, president of the Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand, as saying plagiarism is a major problem in Thailand's literary field. "Often, we will find new writers just copy and paste [and claim it is] their own work," she says.
This case involves a Thai author copying from a Thai author, but as regular readers will know I have examples of Thai magazine and newspaper publishers publishing taking English stories and features, translating them, and reprinting them as their own. They get away with it for two reasons. Firstly most overseas publishers have no one in Thailand monitoring their content, and secondly there's a good chance that any copyright infringement claims would be unsuccessful.
Back in August I met one of Thailand's leading IP lawyers who confirmed the mere act of translating an original English story would probably be considered enough by most courts here to deem that a completely new work.