In Thailand, Copyright Enforcement Comes As A Shock

[Flashermac]

PHRA PRADAENG, Thailand—The land of fake Rolex watches, knockoff DVDs and counterfeit Viagra is now discovering copyright, and it is coming as a bit of a shock for many Thais.

 

This laid-back Buddhist kingdom isn't exactly a bastion of intellectual property protection. All manner of knockoffs are available for sale on the neon-lit sidewalks of the capital, Bangkok, ensuring Thailand has a prominent place on numerous intellectual property blacklists. There is even a museum of counterfeit goods in downtown Bangkok.

 

This free-for-all extends to local music, too. Boonserm Panyasamphan says he doesn't mind if other bands play his group Turbo's best known hit, an erotically-charged footstomper called "I Have an Itchy Ear." He has made a living out of other people's songs for years as his traveling burlesque tours the country, complete with dancers decked out in tiaras and feather boas.

 

"We play whatever people want to hear," says Mr. Boonserm, who is 48 years old with a shock of black, spiky hair.

 

The country's largest music publisher would rather he didn't, though, not unless he pays an annual fee to play its songs.

 

Something similar happens in many countries, where broadcasters, live music venues and other establishments pay for the right to perform copyrighted songs. Now the Thai publisher, GMM Grammy, says its is preparing lawsuits to collect performance fees of up to $7,600 a year directly from artists to help offset losses from piracy and illegal downloads.

 

In some ways, this newfound litigiousness shows how Thailand's economy is evolving to produce more sophisticated goods and services.

 

"Thailand is moving on from being an infringer to a victim," says intellectual property attorney Suebsiri Taweepon, who has pursued dozens of cases at Bangkok-based law firm Tilleke & Gibbins.

 

A decade ago, many of the fakes on sale in Bangkok were produced in local factories. Mr. Suebsiri used to go out with the police as they confronted street vendors on raids of the city's most notorious markets for fake goods. "I saw plenty of drama," he says.

 

Today, Thai firms are claiming intellectual property breaches to protect their businesses.

 

They include a local television station that claims to own the copyright to whistles shaped like lightning bolts. The whistles are a popular symbol of antigovernment street protests here and the TV station, Blue Sky, has instructed its security guards to grab any whistles it reckons are fakes. Another firm creating novel household furniture and lighting, Propangandist, is taking legal action against distributors of illegal knockoffs of its most famous products, including a lamp resembling a boy urinating.

 

A pair of Thai supermodels, meanwhile, attempted and failed to copyright their catwalk struts.

 

GMM Grammy's moves to rein in the country's musicians are creating uproar, though, and Mr. Boonserm and others are pushing back.

 

They argue that in the style of the Thai country music they play, known as Mor Lam, performers have been copying and embellishing each other's songs for generations, just as old blues tunes in the U.S. evolved over the course of years or even decades. The rapid-fire music, featuring almost rap-like lyrics over a thumping, propulsive beat, traces its origins to Thailand's northern neighbor, Laos. During that country's civil war, both sides tapped Mor Lam performers to give them an edge in the propaganda war, with the winning Communist side maintaining a roving troupe of singers until well into the 1970s.

 

Later, the music was popularized by mass migrations from Thailand's Laos-influenced northeast to the rest of the country.

 

Today, Mor Lam is thoroughly mainstream, albeit with some contemporary flourishes. Yinglee Surjumpol's hit "Your Heart for My Number" typifies the new breed of Mor Lam performances. On one hand it revolves around traditional Mor Lam beats and coy lyrics such as "I really want to tell you how cute you are, but I'm still a lady so that wouldn't be appropriate."

 

But it also has some modern flourishes, including face-melting rock guitar breaks. The fusion is wildly popular, and the song last year was adopted as the unofficial anthem for the Thai women's volleyball team.

 

Krit Thomas runs the music business at GMM Grammy, which owns the song, along with 40,000 tracks. He says Ms. Yinglee's performance is typical of the way the company is livening up the industry. "We provide something new, some atmosphere and feeling," he says, and reckons other performers should do the same instead of playing other people's songs.

 

Mr. Boonserm and scores of other musicians including prominent bandleader Kriangsak Prichawutiwat have descended on television studios in Bangkok to demand their rights to extemporize and riff however they like. And in tried-and-tested music biz fashion, they are also organizing their own Live Aid-style concerts to pressure Thailand's government to soften the country's copyright laws. "We have to make a living," Mr. Kriangsak says.

 

At one recent show here in Phra Pradaeng, just south of Bangkok, singers and dancers took turns to perform or make speeches while audience members danced and cheered.

 

Some performers used the occasion to try out their own material. Mowgli, a duo of rappers performing with a Mor Lam back beat, spat out some new rhymes. "These days everything is owned. I wanna sing a song but someone owns it," they rapped. "So I'll play a Mowgli song, a jungle boy song."

 

The backdrop resembled one of the Buddhist temple fairs that traveling Mor Lam bands regularly play, complete with children's slides, cotton candy, and spicy fishball stalls. Many of the audience were migrant workers from Thailand's northeast. An old man danced in front of the stage in a ragged shirt and bare feet while volunteers rustled up some of the 50,000 signatures they need for Thailand's parliament to review the country's copyright laws.

 

"I think the record labels should let people sing whatever songs they like," said one fan, 45-year-old Damrong Lapoh. "It's like free advertising."

 

Backstage, Sodsai Rungpothong, at 62 one of the grandees of the scene, argued that point, too, saying that traveling Mor Lam bands help popularize GMM Grammy's songs. "We are all Thai. Can't we just get along?" he said.

 

 

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