Netflix files copyright complaint with Thailand’s new anti-piracy agency
Netflix is one of the first companies to have filed a copyright complaint with Thailand’s new anti-piracy agency.
Launched on Tuesday, December 18, Coptics is a partnership between Thai police and the country’s government IP department.
The new agency is located within Thailand’s Office of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC). During a press conference to mark the launch of Coptics, officials described the current procedure to block pirate sites as “inadequate”.
According to TorrentFreak, which has translated the NBTC’s statement to English, the NBTC added that the decision to form Coptics was made following “expressions of serious concern from international allies such as the US, Japan, and others whose domestic companies’ IP rights are being infringed in the form of counterfeit handbags, clothes, makeup, electronic devices, and digital piracy”.
NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasith said Coptics was established with the aim to accelerate the process for blocking illegal websites, a procedure which can currently take more than six months to move from an initial complaint to the court issuing a blocking order.
The agency hopes to speed up the process of blocking pirate sites from six months to within a few days of receiving a complaint.
“We have to realise the need to speed up the enforcement procedure and lessen the damage for IP violations in the digital era,” he told the Bangkok Post.
Takorn said that between August and December this year, more than 2,000 websites were reported to be conducting illegal activities. Through the current procedures in place in Thailand, only 20% of those websites were blocked.
According to the Bangkok Post, police reported 744 websites to the NBTC last week, asking it to aid in the blocking of them. But, only 47 of the sites were blocked. Takorn said the remaining 697 websites are encrypted from abroad, meaning that they cannot be blocked locally.
He added that most of the accused websites were hosted by Google, YouTube and Facebook, and the NBTC has asked representatives of the US embassy to invite management teams from the internet companies to work with Thai authorities to address the problem.
The NBTC said the agency will target the proliferation of counterfeit products as well as online piracy.
Piracy is reportedly widespread in Thailand and has led to the country’s placement on the US Trade Representative’s Watch Lists in recent years.
According to a March 2018 report by Netflix, the company estimates that by 2020 it will have more than 546,000 customers in Thailand.
Two other bodies, Major Cineplex Group and the Thai Motion Picture Industry Association, also filed complaints with the new agency, according to the Bangkok Post.
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