PROVISIONAL PROTECTION MEASURES AGAINST COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT ON THE INTERNET

Abstract

Prior to the enforcement of the Copyright Act (No.2) B.E. 2558 Thailand did not have the law related to provisional measures of protection for internet copyright piracy. In case the copyright piracy occurs, the Copyright Act B.E.2537 would be applied.

 Understanding the social context, at present, has rapidly changed, technology has played much more crucial role in our daily life, especially the internet access. As a result, the copyright piracy through internet network has been increasing. Therefore, to have the enforcement of technology strategy to protect copyright work, Thai government has stipulated the Copyright Act B.E.2537 amended by Copyright Act (No.2) B.E.2558, coming into force on August 4, 2015. The act has applied the ‘safe harbor’ principles of the United States of America and Europe in drafting as the model, with the purposes of protecting the creators and the initiators of the new works that disseminated through the internet and also in accordance with the internet users’ behaviors.

Section 32/3 has mentioned the setting up of liability limitation of Internet Service Provider(ISP) to protect the internet service providers from risk in being sued in case of copyright   piracy. The copyright owners can ask the Court to order Internet Service Provider(ISP) to take  down pirated files from their websites whereas the copyright owners has to show enough   evidences to the Court.  After, the Internet Service Provider(ISP) has followed the Court’s order to take down the pirated file, the Internet Service Provider(ISP) do not have the liability of the pirated action.

In Section 32/3, it was found that the process in suppression of copyright piracy and the protection of copyright of the copyright owners has focused on court procedure which it takes time consume and also has impacts on suppression since technology changed all the time. This leads to overwhelming cases in Court of Justice. In addition, the internet copyright piracy deals with technology where it needs technology expertise and experts to more efficiently solve the problems and provide guidelines than the past.

From the observations mentioned earlier, in the researcher’s point of view, it is noted that the Copyright Act (No.2) B.E.2558  is difficult to put into action and cannot solve the problems of intellectual property infringement and internet copyright piracy.  As the result, Thailand will remain the country of Priority Watch List (PWL) according to the Special 301 Report of the United States Trade Representatives.