Another crackdown in Pantip?!

[Guest]

Post deleted by DoxyBlue

[Guest]

Thank you! (For our Yiddish-disadvantaged friends, being called a 'mensch' is a compliment!)

[Guest]

PvtDick: "Actually, I may have just saved you the hassle and expense of paying off the police in exchange for your freedom -- by reporting the site to Geocities."

Yes, it is now covered with a Business Software Alliance (BSA) page.

Please don't confuse one's compromising stance on Thailand bootlegging with an anticorporate stance. Of course R&D, investors and others must be supported by those who can pay, which is usually the West, and socialism etc. doesn't work with human nature...

The BSA seems to be doing the right thing in targeting businesses. Microsoft, RS Promotions and Grammy Entertainment are the main ones that target Pantip and elsewhere. (Sorry, moderator, for mentioning other places before, another thing that won't happen in subsequent posts).

Once, when some Thai pop stars came to Pantip to talk peaceably with vendors, some of the heavyweight mafia ones threw things at them and physically threatened them. It was terrible. However, several shops stopped selling Thai pop music.

The vast majority of the software CDs are not "Made in Thailand", i.e., are not compiled here. They come in from Malaysia, Hong Kong and elsewhere and are copied as-is by the Siamese copycats. However, the Thais print prettier colour covers.

Enough said. :-)

Cheers, mate.

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

Expantip, can you please explain to me why it is Ok to copy foreign stuff, but not Thai?

Seems VERY hypocritical to me.

Sanuk!

[Guest]

Pirating is not right, it's wrong. Many Thais know this, and do not feel right buying bootleg CDs, but what choice do they have?

Thus, your question does not get at the root of the problem. The problem is Thais' inability to pay Western prices or anything close to it. Unfortunately, Thais need to learn and use the technology in order to be able to provide higher tech goods and services rather than just be somewhat enslaved as cheap labour. The gap between the rich and poor will only grow.

However, let's look even at "fairness" and low skilled labour.

Please read the newspaper today.

The U.S. just imposed a 40% tariff on steel imports.

This was predicted in The Economist (the issue the week before the locally banned one), as the American steel workers' union "paid off" the Bush Administration and U.S. politicians and operatives to impose this.

So now, those companies who invested in steel industrialisation in Thailand are cut off from fair trade. Investment is similar to the R&D costs rightly pointed out by PvtDick.

Several months ago, a huge shipment of Thai steel was confiscated by U.S. customs on the claim that it was sold at below cost. (By American standards.)

(The Economist is a very old business-oriented British magazine on politics, economics and society, and one of the most popular magazines internationally. It BLASTED the U.S. government's upcoming steel tariff.)

For decades, the less developed countries have argued for "trade, not aid". (Aid only benefits the corrupt government cronies, both U.S. and less developed countries. Just look at the fiasco with mother Russia, how IMF and World Bank money wound up in numbered Swiss bank accounts in the cronies.)

I wish you had read the arguments on the website. It included the WTO fiasco of the U.S.'s dirty tricks to REVERSE the WTO consensus in order to promote NZ Labour Party Leader Mike Moore over the Thai free trade advocate Dr. Supachai Panichpakdi, an unprecedented move. You can find articles about it on the net. I suggest searching The Economist site. I do not suggest RELYING just the U.S. magazines or talking with people related to the U.S. government here, though if given the chance it's worth getting their viewpoint. (Many government workers here have been on very rich expat packages, like Communist Party cadre, and don't have a clue about merely surviving in the private sector.)

I think that the BSA is doing the right thing by targetting large businesses, and have so far liked to see their approach.

However, the pressures to close down the software COPYING businesses at the grassroots individual-to-individual level are coming from trade representatives, and come as a bad double standard in view of things such as the above two points.

In my opinion, it applies to domestic comsumption of Western software which is far overpriced in view of Thai incomes.

When arguing about "fairness", it's easy to put on your blinders, remember the cases that support your interests and forget the cases that don't. That's human nature.

In a way, I feel like a spokesperson for some of the not-so-bad operations in Thailand, due to my command of the English language. I hope some of my public posts are considered by those drafting policy for private companies and government alike.

I do not sell bootleg CDs. This IP address is in an Internet cafe near where I live. If you find me, you will find no bootleg CDs or anything in my room, nor e-mails on my computer, nor anything. You would find a mix of registered and Pantip applications on my PC, that's all, nothing different from yours' or most government officials' PCs.

Recently, I got together in an Internet cafe to work together on writing and help them on their website, which, by the way, they COPIED from another bootlegger right there, and then I added all that English. (These websites already exist around, but I did the questionable thing of posting it on Usenet and here, beside their postings to Thais.)

I do not need to sell bootleg CDs to survive, so I don't. Never have. The closure of a previous friend's sister's shop in Pantip in February prompted her to contact me again on their behalf. It's an interesting issue.

However, that's all, and this may be the last you hear from me about this.

[Guest]

By the way, I agree with your deleting some of my previous posts. No sense in tipping foreigners on how they can do the same. I finally saw your message on that.

However, I see nothing that would objectively justify deleting the post above.

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

Of course you fully failed to answer my question.

"By the way, I agree with your deleting some of my previous posts. No sense in tipping foreigners on how they can do the same. I finally saw your message on that."

And where did I post a message saying anything to this extent.

Sanuk!

[adikgede]

Unless there are any major objections I am going to close this thread this weekend and ask folks to continue on "The Piracy Issue" : http://board.nanaplaza.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB15&Number=46666&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=

 

 

[adikgede]

Okay threads closed please post any follow ups in the "Piracy Issue" thread as that is the essence of what we are talking about.

 

 

 

http://board.nanaplaza.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB15&Number=46666&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=

 

 

 

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