Heard a number of reports over the last week or so of plain clothes police from bangkok raiding bars in kata,and demanding 50,000 baht from bar owners who are playing music without a licence,if the bar owners do not pay,they face an appearance in a bangkok court,in one instance a computer used for playing music was seized,and in another a bar owner was fined for using copy cd's.

Has anyone else heard anything about this?

PST.

with free buses and water they have to make up the difference somewhere.... its just a moneymaker, legalized scamming.

Same thing happened in Hua Hin a few weeks ago....50,000 on the spot....this was thai bar as well...not farang owned, so maybe be careful

This is true, we had to pay 200b per bar stool... big scam in my opinion!! and another 50b or so per stool to play thai music!

Presumably (from running a BKK bar years ago), if you have the correct music licences from each record company, then you don't have to pay the fine and don't risk losing your equipment.

Do you have the music licences or not?

Simon

A cautionary tale (from Bangkok Post letters section)

source: Bkk Post Aug 12 2008

Complaining about the ways of Thailand by writing to the Bangkok Post is usually an exercise in preaching to the converted. So while this might sound at times like another expat rant, I hope your readers will take this primarily as a cautionary tale.

My Thai wife and I have lived in an Eastern Seaboard town for eight years, where she owns and operates a bar-restaurant. During those years, we have been good citizens and followed the rules and regulations governing such establishments. A few weeks ago, a local policeman told my wife to "be careful" because businesses playing music for customers must have the proper licence.

The next day we visited the chief of police, who explained more fully. He said that music licences were required for places playing Thai music, especially karaoke shops, to ensure that Thai companies (like Grammy) receive the proper royalties. Because Thai music is sometimes played in my wife's restaurant, he suggested she get a licence. She bought one the following day: 6,000 baht for one year. When asked about Western music, he said a licence was not required for farang music.

Lo and behold, last weekend my wife's restaurant was raided by what can only be described as a Gestapo-style goon squad. They confiscated all the Western CDs and proceeded to the local police station, where my wife and I spent the next four hours (until 1am) "negotiating" how much extortion money this shakedown was going to cost us. It did not matter what the chief of this very police station had told us two weeks ago; he was obviously misinformed. You must have a licence for farang music, and burned or pirate CDs are illegal. Yes, there were many burned CDs in the restaurant: some were burned by me at home so the originals could avoid damage in the restaurant; some were from friends; some were mailed by my brother overseas; and perhaps a few were from Bangkok where they had escaped the annual dog-and-pony show when fake Rolexes and pirate CDs are steam-rollered.

Anyway, the head goon demanded 35,000 baht, my wife's "guilty" plea, and no return of copied CDs. Another sanctimonious little goon gave a fractured lecture on intellectual property rights, as if one single baht of the fine they eventually put into their pockets was going to filter back to the allegedly aggrieved musicians.

At night's end, with the help of a few local policemen, the fine was brought down to 20,000 baht, a guilty plea, and our CDs were returned. The alternative was a night in jail for my wife, and into court the next day, which could cost anywhere from 50-100,000 baht if found guilty. I offered to spend the night in jail and roll the dice in court since the CDs were my personal property. That flustered the goons, but only momentarily: "Cannot, cannot. Your wife's restaurant." Unwilling to have my wife in jail, I paid up.

The goons took her ID card (which was not returned), entered its information and her signed confession into their computer, and returned my CDs. While we appreciated the sincere help of some local policemen, it is clear that the police were complicit in this operation since they allowed the goons access to their offices, including a computer hook-up. There were also quite a few smiles and backslaps on the part of both goon squad and local police at the end of the episode.

This is just another example, dear Thai people. Your various governments have already mortally wounded tourism with 10 years' worth of increasingly restrictive visa rules and property ownership laws for foreigners, reduced nightclub hours and absurd alcohol sales hours. And now they are allowing quasi-legal goon squads to target music-playing establishments and worse, to attack small businesses who must close their doors because they can't afford to pay extortion money. Thailand, you smile with your teeth, and the shine is well and truly off.

Finally, my apologies for not using my name or the names of the restaurant and town. But I still must walk the walk, keep my head down and wai people undeserving of respect.

EXASPERATED EXPAT

This is true, we had to pay 200b per bar stool... big scam in my opinion!! and another 50b or so per stool to play thai music!

Isn't that a small price to pay for peace of mind, though?

Better than paying a fine of 50,000 Baht (unless you hace a bar with more than 250seats, that is )

Penkoprod

Tung_Thaid, I'm sorry that you were misinformed by your police guy about the licence requirements to play 'farang' music. When I opened a bar in BKK about 5 years ago, I was advised by the other bar-owners of the need to get licences for all the music that was played, including farang music. As a result, we had no problems when the 'goons' visited us But getting all the correct yearly licences did involve some running around and we ended up with maybe a total of 6 music licences!

Simon

The raiding of bars playing music without the appropriate licence has been going on in the Chalong Police district for about a year now. There have been similar threads in the recent past - for further info, try doing a search of the archives.