Legal experts are urging amendments to intellectual property (IP) law to catch up with new broadcasting technology and avoid a repeat of the recent World Cup football dispute between rights holder RS Plc and the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission.
Nantana: Current IP law impractical
This issue was raised among a discussion of legal experts at Chulalongkorn University's law faculty.
Disputes between rights holders and the telecom regulator often happen in the broadcasting industry, with a previous one centred on football's 2012 Uefa European Championship.
Nantana Inthanon, a former judge on the Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court, said the current IP law had many problems of impractical implementation, particularly for Sections 15 and 29 of the Copyright Act.
The IP law contains three acts, covering patents, trademarks and copyright, and the last one needs an urgent amendment, he said.
"The rights holder has the right to manage and generate profit, while the regulator also has the right to issue regulations aimed at balancing private and public benefits," said Mr Nantana.
Authorities should carefully revise IP law to meet its objectives, he said.
He suggested the Copyright Act be more based on the Trade Competition Act to prevent profiteering. The IP law's objective is to balance private and public rights to meet the principle of fair use.
As technology has advanced, developers have been attempting to invent technology to prevent every violation and push the amendment of related IP law to meet changing technology in many Western countries.
Thailand's IP law is based on two international agreements — the Berne Convention and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.
In the Chulalongkorn University discussion, a State Council representative agreed it was time to revise the Copyright Act.
Wichai Sukum, assistant director-general of the Intellectual Property Department, said Thailand was frequently at a disadvantage when it negotiated free trade agreements with partners including the US, EU and Australia, as their provisions were not in line with Thai IP law and sometimes overruled Thai regulations.