After a decade of reform, the Copyright Act finally came into effect on Aug 4.
The new law features a wide range of protection for copyright holders, and the technology designed to protect the copyright.
However, the law has sparked mass panic, especially among social media users.
Below are some major changes to the copyright law that may affect you or your business, as well as guidance from prominent legal experts.
Dhiraphol Suwanprateep, a partner at Baker & McKenzie, says the new Copyright Act introduces and grants protection for the new concept of rights management information (RMI) and technological protection measures (TPM) to support electronic copyright and performers' rights in the form of computer code.
RMI refers to the data that indicates the author, the created work, the performer, the copyright owner or period of time and conditions on the use of the works tagged or affixed to the copyrighted work.
For example, Mr Dhiraphol says, Mr A took a photo of certain items in a famous restaurant and then affixed his name to the corner of the photo before posting it on Instagram.
Mrs B found it and wanted to post it on her Facebook account. If Mrs B posts the picture without crediting Mr A, this is deemed a deletion of the RMI knowing that such an act induces/causes/affords convenience/conceals a copyright infringement. This would be deemed an infringement of RMI under the new copyright law, with certain exceptions.
TPM means a technology designated to prevent reproduction or control access to any copyrighted works and such technology has been used with the copyrighted works effectively.
The examples of TPM are, among others, (1) digital streaming services which are password-protected; (2) e-books that once legally downloaded can only be read on a specific e-reader; (3) DVDs and Blu-ray discs that can be viewed only in specific regions and are uncopiable.
Therefore, if a person circumvents TPM or provides a circumvention service for TPM knowing that such action could induce or cause an infringement of copyright or the right of the performer, this would be regarded as an infringement of TPM under the new Act, with certain exceptions.
Mr Dhiraphol says the prohibition of sharing copyrighted work is not new. It has been prohibited since the Copyright Act was put in place in 1994.
Works, such as photos, articles and so forth that are freely accessible on the internet can be copyrighted depending upon whether the owner of such works wants to reserve their copyright or not.
Some copyright owners indicate their reservation by adding the © symbol or their names to their work. Some do not. For those who do not, it does not mean that such work is not copyrighted.
Mr Dhiraphol says social media users can still share or repost pictures that are not copyrighted by providing credit to the copyright owner.
"If the sharing doesn't fall within the copyright exception or fair use and especially if it's for commercial purpose, users should seek permission from the copyright owner first," he says.
The challenge is that while the fair use principle may be applied to certain cases where the sharing is for personal use, there is no strict standard or precedent of how fair use may be applied in each case. The court would decide this on a case-by-case basis.
Therefore, social media users should not always rely on fair use as it is a narrow exception under the Act, not a general protection for social media users.
Mr Dhiraphol says the Act also grants an exception for necessary reproduction of a copyrighted work in a computer system to enable the devices equipped in the computer system, or the copyrighted work submitted via the computer system, to run normally.
For example, the routine operations of computers, PDAs and e-book readers involves "temporarily" copying programs and other copyrighted material to their random access memory, which should not be treated as a copyright infringement.
A handbook provides information of a new law which comes into effective on August 4, 2015.
Another important principle of the Act is the provision of the defence for service providers who can prove that they did not have direct control/initiate/order the infringement of copyright in the service provider's computer system, provided that such service providers comply with the court order to remove the infringing content requested by the copyright owner.
"Having a safe harbour will afford certain confidence to foreign digital-content service providers to invest in Thailand as it goes hand in hand with Thailand's digital economy policy," says Mr Dhiraphol.
However, he says this is a challenge that would flood the courts with complaints from copyright owners.
He suggests the government take a close look at another mechanism called Graduated Response, which cuts the number of cases going to court and has been adopted by several countries aiming to stamp out internet piracy.
Graduated Response is a mechanism in which copyright holders send a series of warnings, mostly three times.
In warning ISPs that they are allegedly involved in copyright infringement, copyright holders provide details of the possible infringement.
If ISPs fail to take down the disputed content, the matter could go the authorities to decide. This process would be faster and cut the number of court cases.
Mr Dhiraphol says the new Act also introduces punitive damages by entitling the court to order the infringer to pay additional damages not exceeding twice the damages.
This compares with the previous act, which needed clear evidence that an infringement of copyright or the right of the performer is deliberate; or it is intended to cause the copyrighted work or the right of the performer to be accessed widely by the general public.
Generally, Thai law does not recognise punitive damages as is widely recognised in the US. Having punitive damages and the camcording regulation is expected to reduce piracy by a certain amount and may help Thailand escape the Priority Watch List.
Mr Dhiraphol says while the new Copyright Act seems to focus on tackling problems of copyright infringement in the digital era, it does not directly deal with internet piracy such as BitTorrent file sharing.
These new technologies/systems attempt to get around copyright law by decentralising their function. Instead of file transferring between two users, it allows interaction between several users simultaneously to upload and download illegal files of music, movies, e-books and so forth.
The owners of BitTorrent websites are not the ones who upload or download the illegal files, which come from end users worldwide. Certain files that have been shared via BitTorrent websites are not password-protected.
Therefore, it is arguable that there is no infringement of TPM under the new law. While there may be some cases where seeders (the end users who upload and share the files) may crack the password prior to sharing and fall under the new copyright law, the leechers (end users who download the files) may argue that they did not know that the file is illegal.
Also, it is arguable that BitTorrent sites are merely facilitating the searching and indexing of files similar to the function of search engine providers.
Mr Dhiraphol says it is yet to be seen how Thai courts will interpret these cases (if there are any), for instance, whether the courts would charge BitTorrent website owners with secondary infringement of communication to public of illegal files for commercial purposes, such as advertising fees from website banners.
Paiboon Amonpinyokeat, founder of P&P law firm and an adviser to the Thai Webmaster Association, says it is likely that the new act will drive foreign companies to ask courts to order ISPs to remove illegal content from offending websites.
Previously, copyright owners' requests for courts to order ISPs to remove content have almost always been denied.
"It has become even more critical for software developers to be able to protect access to their products and services online," says Jared Ragland, Asia Pacific policy director at the Business Software Alliance, an advocate for the global software industry.
Mr Ragland says the latest revision of the law has missed an important opportunity to provide adequate protection against those who circumvent technological protection measures to obtain unauthorised access to online services.
Also, the revised law does not explicitly address the trafficking of devices and technology designed to enable this type of theft of service. This makes it difficult to pursue and prosecute individuals and organisations that provide cracked passwords or activation codes.
As the cloud grows, this issue will also grow in importance, says Mr Ragland.
"Laws in places such as South Korea and Singapore address this issue, so we regret that Thailand's new copyright law has this loophole," he says.
On a more positive note, he says the industry is hopeful that this deficiency in the revised copyright law might be addressed in the proposed revisions to the draft amendment of the Computer Crime Act.