Thailand: Property owners hold the key to law enforcement

Two entertainment companies welcome the move to draft a new intellectual property law to increase the effectiveness of anti-piracy crackdowns, hoping that a half of the pirated products now available could disappear from the market.

The new law is expected to place legal responsibility on property owners who allow their tenants to sell counterfeited and pirated products. Many people support this idea but are not keen on a proposal that consumers could be fined 1,000 baht if they are found buying or using such goods.

Yongsak Ekprachyasakul, managing director of sales and marketing of GMM Grammy Plc, said that property owners who allow tenants to sell pirated products, or who know about the sales but simply ignore them, have been responsible for making the piracy problem as big as it is today.

When police raid some shopping areas and arrest some pirated product sellers, sales might just be suspended for a day or so, and after that it's business as usual. "It will be better and more practical for the crackdown if the property owners co-operate with the police and copyright owners. They should not allow any pirated product to be sold in their stores and this must be mentioned in the lease," Mr Yongsak said.

If tenants violate the contracts, they must have their leases terminated immediately. But if the property owners ignore piracy problems at their outlets, they must take legal responsibility and be fined.

"If counterfeit and pirated goods sellers don't have places to sell their products, the piracy problem will be solved by more than 50%," Mr Yongsak said.

He recalled that Grammy used to seek co-operation from many shopping malls where pirated products were sold but their landlords rarely co-operated.

"I can say that international retail chains such as Tesco Lotus are very concerned about this issue and are trying hard to solve it. They don't want any pirated product to be sold at their outlets," he added.

However, Mr Yongsak did not agree with the proposal to penalise consumers as many of them do not have proper knowledge and understanding about piracy.

"I would like the authorities to think carefully about the consumer issue as it's very sensitive. If some people get pirated DVDs or counterfeit bags from friends as a present, how can we penalise them?"

Sutthisak Prasatkarukarn, a director of Thai Copyright Collection Co, a subsidiary of RS Plc, also believes that the market for pirated and counterfeit products would be seriously hurt if the new law took effect - and was enforced."Buyers may think twice when they want to buy pirated goods on the street as they may be fined. Most of the pirated product sellers will face difficulty in doing business and up to 70% of them will disappear if they are not allowed to sell in many shopping places," he said.

Currently, piracy problems are getting bigger even though Thailand has had an IP law for a decade. It is widely known that the growing problem stems from poor law enforcement. It is estimated that pirated CDs or DVDs outnumber the genuine ones by four or five times in terms of sales in the Thai market.

"Pirated CDs or DVDs are very easy to produce at home or just in a small apartment. The investment cost is just for a computer and blank discs, while copyright owners like us have to spend a lot on many things from the artist, songwriter, and composer to marketing activities," Mr Sutthisak said.

Currently, only 38 factories nationwide are registered with the authorities as authorised CD producers.

An industry source said some pirated DVD producers were not afraid of violating law.

Some hire children or disabled people to sell their products because they know that these people will get off lightly when they are caught.

"This problem will never end as wrongdoers don't care because low-ranking police are not serious about arresting them and the court will just give them a soft punishment," the source said.

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Thailand: Kasemkij investing B2.2bn to expand. Shopping mall part of diversification

Kasemkij Co, which owns and runs the Cape House, Kantary and Kameo hotels and serviced apartments in Thailand, is investing 2.24 billion baht to renovate and build new properties next year.

The company will open two new hotels - Cape Nidhra Hotel Hua Hin (900 million baht) and another under the Kantary brand at Khao Lak, Phangnga (800 million baht), targeting foreign customers particularly from Japan and Europe, said project development manager Tirawan Pangsrivongse.

Kasemkij will also make its first entry into the retail business by opening a shopping complex in Chiang Mai with an investment of 80 million baht, partly to serve guests at the adjacent Kantary Hills Hotels & Serviced Apartments.

It is now spending 465 million baht to renovate its two hotels, Cape Panwa Hotel & Spa Phuket and Cape House Serviced Apartments. The renovations will finish by 2010.

"We will be very active next year to celebrate our 30th anniversary. We want to strengthen our brands to pave the way for overseas expansion in the future and a potential market is Vietnam," Ms Tirawan said.

The company will start renovating Cape Panwa Hotel & Spa Phuket soon to transform all superior rooms to suites, bringing total rooms down to 122 from 246. It will build a new wing with 100 rooms next year.

For the Cape House Serviced Apartments, it will renovate the whole building under a New England Classic concept, Ms Tirawan said.

For 2012 plan, Kasemkij will introduce two projects: one will use the Kantary brand and another Cape Panwa on Koh Samui.

"However, these projects will depend on the economic situation," she said. "We are not hurrying to expand our business because we aren't a public company. We want to grow gradually but be stable in the long term. Consequently, we don't have plans to offer hotel management services and put money into potential projects."

Ms Tirawan said the company believed it would be difficult to control product and service quality if it entered hotel management because it is hard to deal with property owners when renovations are needed.

The company also plans to open a new office building on Sukhumvit Road next year. Another project, the 170-room Kantary Hotel & Serviced Apartment in Kabinburi, Prachin Buri province, will open as scheduled next month.

At the present, it operates 12 properties. Since early this year, the average occupancy rate at its key destinations in Chiang Mai, Phuket and Bangkok has ranged from 80-90%.

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