Thailand's IP violations likely to drop

BANGKOK, August 13 (TNA) - Violations of direct intellectual property (IP) rights in Thailand, especially on foreign movies and music, are expected to decline due to the present borderless world with increasing people using the Internet and wireless systems. Pajchima Tanasanti, Director-General of the Thai Ministry of Commerce's Department of Intellectual Property, told reporters on Monday that IP violators in the country now tend to copy from online systems, rather than making CD or DVD copies which were earlier popular. Pajchima insisted that even the enforcement of stricter laws cannot completely wipe out violators of intellectual property rights in the country because the IP violators are switching to copying them to the online systems. With current innovative technologies, Pajchima acknowledged, it should be more difficult for authorities concerned to control the violations of intellectual property rights, as violators could copy from smart phones or smart televisions. In an attempt to persuade people to stop buying counterfeit products, Pajchima revealed that her department recently organised the "Stop Piracy Buy Original Now" campaign in Thaialnd's southern resort Surat Thani Province, which gained sufficient success, especially among international tourists. According to official statistics released by the Royal Thai Police, there were 4,486 IP violation cases in the country during the first five months of this year and more than 3.66 million pieces of the fake goods were seized. Last year, a total of 9,844 IP violation cases were reported in Thailand and more than 4.43 million counterfeit goods were seized.(TNA)