Two men who extorted teenager over cartoon Krathongs are jailed; given 80K bail for appeal

 

Naew Na

 

Two men who extorted a 15 year old Korat girl over krathongs she made for last year's Loy Krathong festival have been ordered jailed by the Court of First Instance in the north eastern Thai city.

 

The case caused a great scandal in November 2019 after the men posed as "copyright agents" using false documentation to claim money from the teen - named as "Orn" last year - over using images of cartoon characters like Garfield and Angry Birds. 

 

They pretended to buy the krathongs then slapped her with a 50,000 baht fine for copyright breach, a sum that was bargained down to 5,000 baht. 

 

After it emerged that more than 50 vendors had been ripped off in similar scams some up to 100,000 baht each. 

 

Now the court in the case against the 15 year old now called "A" resulted in a 2 year and six month sentence for a man called Prajak and a three year term not suspended for a man called Phomphakorn or Nan.

 

The court determined that their sentences should be different and used its discretion. 

 

Wasana, the wife of Nan was declared innocent having no knowledge of the scam.

 

The case was prosecuted by a group of lawyers who will now decide how to proceed on behalf of other vendors. 

 

The two men were granted bail in the sum of 80,000 baht each and vowed to appeal. 

 

Source: Naew Na

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2020-10-29

 

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Should have stuck to using 'Hello Kitty' logos or many other cartoon figures subject to copyright yet blatantly exploited by local companies and individuals. 

5 hours ago, webfact said:

The two men were granted bail in the sum of 80,000 baht each and vowed to appeal.

I wonder if they used the stolen money for bail. 

5 hours ago, webfact said:

resulted in a 2 year and six month sentence for a man called Prajak and a three year term not suspended for a man called Phomphakorn or Nan.

 

5 hours ago, webfact said:

The two men were granted bail in the sum of 80,000 baht each and vowed to appeal. 

 

 

So a year  to get a verdict and then instead of going to prison after being found guilty they are let out on bail ! 

26 minutes ago, johng said:

 

 

 

So a year  to get a verdict and then instead of going to prison after being found guilty they are let out on bail ! 

Well it is Loy Krathong this week.

Not siding with the extorters, but Loy Krathong is a Buddhist religious festival, not an excuse for kids to float cartoon characters down the river to pollute it.

And she WAS breaking copyright laws, just like T-shirts or copied software etc. 

16 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

I wonder if they used the stolen money for bail. 

Bargained down from 50,000 to 5,000 should have guessed it was a ploy.

2 low life's that l would happily cave in..

Who cares about copyright? No one here does. Making items using image rights belonging to someone else, without permission is a crime.

 

Even so, the perps got their comeuppance. Now for those who make the Kratongs, and the shirts and handbags....everything else with copyrighted images or brands.