On Reuters.com we can read an article on Bangkok's software pirates returning to Pantip Plaza, a chaotic, packed shopping center in downtown Bangkok:
Dozens of Thai teenagers gather around a table at one stall, flipping through a book of photocopied covers of compact discs. A female customer in her mid-30s points to a CD featuring around 100 songs from 10 albums by Thai and foreign pop icons. A few minutes later the shopkeeper rushes back with the compact disc she requested sealed in a plastic bag. |
The price -- 100 baht ($2.32), a fifth of what customers would pay for a legal hit CD album. Software owners are complaining that trade in pirated CDs and DVDs, everything from the latest Microsoft Windows system to Hollywood movies, is booming again in Pantip Plaza and on roadside stalls after authorities halted aggressive raids in February.
Companies complain:
Representatives from the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which represents U.S. software publishers, voiced their concern over piracy in a meeting with a Thai cabinet minister supervising piracy suppression in mid-April.
Deputy Commerce Minister Newin Chidchop told reporters after the meeting that BSA delegates complained the number of pirates had risen over the past two months after police raids fizzled out. BSA regional manager for enforcement, Tarun Sawney, told a news conference in early April the problems were far from solved here.
"Sellers and buyers at Pantip know they have broken the law by trading illegal CDs, but consumers always claim that the copyrighted ones are too expensive," Sawney told reporters. "Software users should realize that it takes a lot of time and money to develop a software program, but people who copy these programs do not invest in anything."
Pirate software manufacturers say their highest cost is the CD-making machine which has a price tag of 50 million baht, while the production cost for each compact disc is 10 baht. Thai officials deny they have ever compromised with intellectual property pirates.
A spokesman for the police pirate software suppression team said rogue software makers had turned to more sophisticated methods, including receiving orders with credit card payment through their Web Sites, to escape police raids. "We can never get rid of them. Newcomers will immediately replace the arrested ones in this lucrative business," he said.
Last year only 36 cases of software-copyright violation went to court as a result of BSA action, leading to fines totaling four million baht. BSA has estimates that 79 percent of software used in Thailand last year was illegal, compared with 81 percent in 2000. You can read the complete article here on Reuters.com.
Source: Reuters
