Copycat culture earns a deserved reputation
Re: "US keeps Thailand on priority watch list", May 3.
Thailand’s inclusion for the seventh consecutive year on the US Priority Watchlist might be a national embarrassment, but will come as no surprise. Thailand’s tolerance of copyright violation and the poor resources allocated to the Intellectual Property Department’s enforcement efforts have contributed to our chronic failure to tackle the real root of the problem – a national culture of indifference to fakery of all colours.
The US action is only the tip of this “IP iceberg”, a problem characterised by exam cheating in schools, plagiarism by students, professors and politicians, and rampant violation of textbook, software and brand trademarks. According to an Assumption University poll, 74.9 per cent of students admit to cheating in their exams.
The recent exposés of the sale of exam questions to students properly triggered disciplinary action by the minister of education. In contrast, the minister of science and technology refused point-blank to act against one of his senior officials after the revocation of the official’s PhD. At the time, Mr Plod absurdly proclaimed to the media that academic fraud was “a personal matter” unconnected with performance of official duties. Only in Thailand!
And what are we to make of the National Innovation Agency’s boast of “adapting” Russian-made bomb detectors to make cheap local knock-offs? Is this how state agencies “respect” the IP of overseas companies marketing their proprietary technologies in Thailand?
Sadly, without major investment in both enforcement and civic education to build “ethical capital” among our youth (as practised, for example, in Singapore schools), doing business with Thailand and its people will increasingly be regarded as a high-risk proposition.
W Wyn Ellis
Bangkok
