A recent scam involving "copyright agents" making money out of a 15-year-old girl, whom they tricked into producing krathong floats featuring rights-protected San-X cartoon characters, tells just as much about our troubled copyright protection law as it does about disproportionate, ineffective law enforcement.
Early this month, the girl was arrested by police in Nakhon Ratchasima when she delivered the floats to a local department store. The arrest was made on the orders of one of the agents. Her family ended up paying a negotiated 5,000-baht "fine" to the agents who at first demanded 50,000 baht.
After a representative of the cartoon copyright holder denied anyone had been assigned to do the job, police sought an arrest warrant for the agents, a man and a woman, and also broadened their investigation after more than 40 vendors claimed they been victims of similar extortion.
These recent incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. For over a decade, many people have fallen prey to similar scams enabled by the copyright agent designation system.
Kannikar Kijtiwatchakul of the FTA Watch civil society group recently told Prachatai news agency that the Department of Intellectual Property has allowed such a system to exist without proper regulations and, as a result, it has been abused by both real agents and scammers.
Victims include operators of small restaurants who have played copyrighted music and street vendors who have sold bootleg CDs. Unluckily, they are just small fish in a larger game.
The definition of copyright violations under the 1994 Copyright Act is vague, and the department has failed to raise public awareness and understanding about what constitutes a copyright violation and what does not. At the same time, it has not made available a list of designated agents of the rights holders, making it tough for law enforcement and the public to find out whether copyright agents are actually scammers.
With the Copyright Act prescribing both imprisonment and fines as penalties for violators, scammers have used the criminal punishment as a basis to threaten their victims, most of whom are women and girls, and seek money from them in 'fines'.
This week, deputy national police chief Pol Gen Wirachai Songmetta said the 15-year-old girl's krathong did not violate any copyrights. The copyright agency confirmed cartoon drawings on her floats did not resemble rights-protected characters.
Even if they had looked alike, the girl would have received two warnings before facing legal action, Pol Gen Wirachai said.
His message was clearly not disseminated to the police officer who arrested the girl and possibly many other officers.
Evidence from such dubious sting operations should also not be accepted by the police in the first place.
Unlike Thailand, crackdowns in other countries on copyright violations or lawsuits against violators usually target the big fish.
The criminal punishments under Thailand's Copyright Act is too harsh and should be ended, otherwise there will likely only be more victims of similar scams. Cases involving copyright violations should only be handled in civil courts and mainly target the big fish.
Protection of copyright is vital in order to promote innovation and protect the work of others. But the use of the copyright protection law must be proportionate and sensible.