Thai Software Police Cracks Down on Unlicensed Software

Thai Software Police Cracks Down on Unlicensed Software

Sawatdee user both BiG and small beware! Those running international businesses from PC with pirated software as innocent as presentation and icon management could be snagged in the most recent Thailand government CRACKDOWN. Thailand is turning the heat on and asking others including the Interpol (International Police) and evidence have been gathered and are ready to be submitted to the Cambodian authorities so they can arrest.


Thai software police cracks down on unlicensed software
Police raids small and big copyright violators
Full story:
thaivisa.com/forum/Crackdown-Unlicensed-Software-Inte-t313209.html

BANGKOK: -- Police are now raiding companies suspected of using unlicensed software in an intensified effort to reduce piracy and support the government's "Creative Economy" strategy.

"Over the last month we have reviewed 1,000 investigations in which various businesses are accused of software piracy, and now we are conducting raids on many of them," Pol Colonel Sarayuth Pooltanya of the Economic and Cyber Crime Division (ECD) said yesterday.

In the first raid of this latest enforcement drive, a Chon Buri-based manufacturer of airport trolleys, shopping carts, pallets and other metal products was found using unlicensed design software valued at Bt1.2 million.

Also in the same province, an engineering unit of a global corporation was found with unlicensed design software valued at Bt290,000. This company has assets of more than Bt200 million.

The ECD is gearing up for almost daily raids that should extend through the end of the year.

"Monday was the beginning of what we see as an intense period of enforcing intellectual property rights."

Police say they will continue to track down copyright violators no matter the size of the alleged infraction.

"The only way we can reduce Thailand's software piracy rate is by diligently following up on complaints and taking enforcement actions against those companies violating the Copyright Act.

"We are confident that by aiming to reduce software piracy we can make a positive contribution to the progress of Thailand's Creative Economy strategy," he said.

The ECD has made a significant impact in reducing the software piracy rate of 76 per cent. In each of the last two years, the software piracy rate has fallen by 2 percentage points, a significant drop compared to the reductions achieved in other countries during the same period.

-- The Nation 2009-11-10

They had the police in the Rama 2 Central Plaza a few days ago, taking pictures inside the 2 stores they have in there that have games and movies. Seeing as they are both still open, I am guessing they were either documenting for a longer term investigation, or more likely to the contrary.

We have noticed even in Pattaya, over the past 6 months, the selection of newer movies has become more and more scarce. You used to be able to go once a week, or every 2 weeks, and grab a half dozen or so new movies. Going these days, your likely to find 3 or so movies once a month. There is too much money being made by EVERYONE, for them to put a stop to it completely, so they are likely coming after the people that won't effect the industry, or those not willing to pay to keep their profit sharing up to date. I could be wrong though, but highly doubt it from talking with friends that have these kind of boutiques.

I don't understand why anyone would buy those pirate movie CD's anymore, when everything you could ever want is available for free download on any number of bit torrent sites.

[allieb]

I don't understand why anyone would buy those pirate movie CD's anymore, when everything you could ever want is available for free download on any number of bit torrent sites.

Downloading movies from bit torrent sites is also illegal. Some countries are asking ISP's to track downloaders . I believe that the UK for example is asking ISP's to disconnect services to people downloading bittorrent movies and ban them from having an internet connection.

I don't understand why anyone would buy those pirate movie CD's anymore, when everything you could ever want is available for free download on any number of bit torrent sites.

Downloading movies from bit torrent sites is also illegal. Some countries are asking ISP's to track downloaders . I believe that the UK for example is asking ISP's to disconnect services to people downloading bittorrent movies and ban them from having an internet connection.

yeah, I can see the ISPs disconnecting 90% of their customers. good business move. anyway, the copyright owners are after the people who initially seed the file, there are just too many people downloading to do anything about it. same as the situation with buying pirated CDs - they are after the people producing the CDs, not the customers.

there was a recently proposal here in Thailand to make it illegal to buy pirated goods, but that idea was dropped.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/economics/25919/to-catch-a-pirate

[Chuai-Duai]

Have Police crackdowns reduced the software available at Pantip Plaza? I'll soon be in Bangkok and I usually pay a visit to stock up.

Have Police crackdowns reduced the software available at Pantip Plaza? I'll soon be in Bangkok and I usually pay a visit to stock up.

2 weeks ago Panthip was business as usual. as was the DVD business along Silom this evening.

I don't understand why anyone would buy those pirate movie CD's anymore, when everything you could ever want is available for free download on any number of bit torrent sites.

Bit torrent is risky since everyone that connects to you knows your IP address. It can also be very slow if there aren't a lot of seeds in the swarm for that torrent.

If you are willing to spend $20/month then the faster and safer way is to use NNTP (news servers). The servers will allow downloads at the limit of your Internet connection.

Here are a few links in case anyone would like to research this:

www.nzbmatrix.com (http://www.nzbmatrix.com)
www.newsleecher.com (http://www.newsleecher.com)
www.easynews.com (http://www.easynews.com) and www.giganews.com (http://www.giganews.com) are both services that I've used.

I did download one movie while I was in Thailand, so I know it works from there.

Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of people are downloading bit torrents at any one time? And WTF cares if someone knows your IP address, as long as you are properly protected?

[cdnmatt]

And WTF cares if someone knows your IP address, as long as you are properly protected?

Because it lets the police and lawyers know which address they should send their request for a donation to.

Riiiight. And Santa's going to come down the chimney, too.

Riiiight. And Santa's going to come down the chimney, too.

Admittedly not very likely in Thailand. Not everyone that reads this forum lives there, tho. I actually know a family that have had to settle out of court for thousands of dollars by getting caught for this.

So-called protection, like Peer Guardian, is never up to date. There are a couple companies whose livelihood is to hunt people down on behalf of the RIAA and MPAA and their nerds may be smarter than your nerds.

NNTP is pretty much impossible to trace (even moreso if you connect using SSL). Even when you add in the price of the software and service, it is cheaper than buying discs. Combine that with the greatly increased speed and it's a no-brainer to me.