Bad habits are hard to break, and the use of pirated software in Thailand is firmly entrenched and may take many years to overcome.
However, inroads have been made by the Thai software police.
The Washington-based Business Software Association once reported that 90% of the PCs in Thailand had illegal software installed. Last year, this had dropped to 75% as the Royal Thai Police’s Economic and Cyber Crime Division (ECD) continued its fight against counterfeit and unlicensed programs.
ECD officials last year raided 210 companies believed to be using unauthorised software and found about 472 million baht worth of pirated programmes installed on their computers, said Chainarong Chareonchaiyanon, ECD deputy commander.
Most of the raids took place in industrial areas of Ayutthaya and Samut Prakan.
Pol Col Chainarong said BSA representatives had underlined the problem of software piracy in a recent meeting with ECD staff, indicating that all sectors of Thai society – including the police – are using bootlegged titles.
This year, police have made 28 arrests while the software industry is said to have lost 10 million baht to pirates.
The ECD police pay special attention to companies or factories in the fields of manufacturing, architecture, design, construction and trading, because past arrests have often involved them.
The programs most often pirated are industry-standard office, design and entertainment titles, including Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, Catia, Autodesk and the Adobe range.
Software companies often hire law agencies to probe copyright violations.
One common tactic is to send spies to work in a suspected company, Pol Col Chainarong revealed.
Sometimes former employees of those companies make tip-offs, while online updates can automatically send details of trangressions to the copyright owner.
Still, the crime incurs relatively light penalties in Thailand.
According to the country’s copyright law, anyone found guilty of duplicating or modifying copyrighted computer software without permission would be subject to a fine of 100,000 to 800,000 baht, or a jail term of six months to four years, or both.
Most convicted wrongdoers choose to pay damages to the software owners, who assess their reimbursement amount based on the number of days of infringement plus interest.
Despite having years of experience in fighting software piracy, the ECD deputy chief takes no pride in the task.
“My perception is that working on this kind of case means the Thai police become tools for the United States and benefits are only yielded by the copyright holders,” he said.
“Thailand’s industrial sector still lags behind [developed countries] in terms of competitiveness, so it may not yet be ready to invest in costly software applications.
“I prefer to urge the government to seek alternatives by negotiating with the US over software trading.”
Pol Col Chainarong said the ECD staff were often seen as troublemakers by entrepreneurs.
The officers and the government did not gain any advantage from arresting bogus software users because in most cases, legal settlements are reached through the offenders’ payments, he said.
Thus, the only party that would benefit from the arrests is the companies which own the software copyright, he added.
Source:http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/227717/the-hard-line-on-software-piracy
