Software Police Target Thai Businesses

[crocodilexp]

You often buy new computers with preloaded software. So if a customer buys a computer, how are they supposed to know that it was illegally installed and not an OEM licensed agreement to preload the software? What do you tell the police if they challenge it and it came preloaded on your computer?

It's VERY easy to tell -- look at the sticker on the bottom of the laptop or somewhere on the box, I've never seen one missing. Alternately, ask the vendor for their OEM licenses.

The amount of possible doubt is about the same as when I buy a branded shirt from Chatuchak for 150 baht and then say "how am I supposed to tell it's not real Lacoste?"

[England01]

Software police target Phuket businesses

Phuket Gazette IT Manager Seubsak ('Big') Sahaworaphan.

PHUKET: -- As part of a nationwide investigation, Phuket businesses are being investigated closely by police for using illegal computer software.

A Gazette source said a 'high profile' property investment firm was raided earlier this week.

Police are said to have seized hardware and software, all allegedly unlicensed. The company was given a million baht fine, the source said.

Following news of the raid, a number of Phuket businesses reportedly closed for the day.

Colonel Sarayuth Pooltanya, deputy commander of the Royal Thai Police Economic and Cyber Crimes Division (ECD), said late last month that "all businesses will have to ensure that they are compliant with the Thai Copyright Act."

"Major efforts" to target companies using pirated software began on October 26, he said.

A list of 1,000 suspect companies nationwide compiled by the ECD has been based on tips, some anonymous. These are typically from sources within the target companies.

Leads are also being shared by the Business Software Alliance, which runs a toll-free hotline and website for informants to report on the use of pirated and unlicensed business software.

In recent months, the ECD has stepped up enforcement of intellectual property rights in respect of software.

August marked one of the ECD's most successful months, with 15 substantial raids netting 54.5 million baht's worth of allegedly non-copyright software.

The raided companies came from a wide variety of industries, including manufacturing, real estate, automobiles, shipping, design and engineering.

Phuket Gazette IT Manager Seubsak Sahaworaphan said businesses should perform regular checks to make sure employees are not downloading illegal software.

"We use a software checking device called System Hound which is installed in all our computers and has a centralized network control point," he said.

"The system performs regular checks on all of our computers and makes sure all licenses are up to date," he said.

It was not reported if or when the probe would be expanded to include computer companies that load up hard drives with illegal software when selling new machines to customers.

-- Phuket Gazette & The Nation 2009-11-05

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[England01]

they have been doing the same in Samui the last two weeks. Several companys closed the doors to stop them walking in !!..

Any one know a shop in thailand that sells licenced products..?

haha

[taxin]

Anyone know the name of the company in Phuket that was busted ?

[vzk]

Topic aside, that's one bad-ass ER diagram in the headline picture

It's actually the MS Access Database Scheme - sorta an ERD for beginners :-)

And by the looks of it, it's quite serious - maybe the folks should cossgrade to SQLServer (or Oracle, or PostgreSQL:-).

Surely, if this baby is still running on MSAccess, they will run into problems if more than 5 users are working on it concurrently.

[hawker9000]

all part of the western world promising to help Thailand modernize providing it takes active steps to stamp out unlicensed software. make the most of Thailand while you can. the western world won't be happy until all nations are harmonized into one huge generic blob.

Gee - isn't it funny how when Geo Bush didn't want to wait for the rest of the world to join him in his crusade to put down Saddam Hussein, it was all about global harmony (and his insensitivity to it). And the world order certainly celebrated his successor's election. What a wonderful thing the "global community" was then, eh? But now we're aghast at this crackdown on illegal software because it evidences that same world order reaching its tentacles into our favorite vacation spot.

Oh, I know. "That's different!"

[mbkudu]

As part of a nationwide investigation, Phuket businesses are being investigated closely by police for using illegal computer software.

But the outfits in Pantip SELLING all that illegal software will be allowed to continue to do so, - keeping the supply going so to speak.

The police 'run' the business at Phantip. What will they do, crack themselves down?

[andyww]

If they are not having a crackdown, they are normally creating a hub.

Not necessarily. They could have been moved to an inactive post...

Edited November 5, 2009 by andyww

[phil2]

You can use illegal for free or free and completely legal they cost the same, but the later comes with less trouble.  

Now would be a good time to start thinking outside of the box.

Open source,  Open mind.  No police.  

Linux or BSD is the answer

[phil2]

It seems that the freeware "OPEN OFFICE" from Linux is extremely popular nowadays; because it is freeware, there is no license needed, but if it safe (spyware, hackerwise)? I don't know.

One million percent safe.

[phil2]

funny to see in the department stores when selling a new computer / laptop .... FREE OS they always put on it... meaning linux, but who uses that as an end-user

I do for the last 3 yrs, and I don't have any regrets. You should try to find out how and why Linux was developed.

[Eureka]

I'd have to agree. Buy a PC in pantip etc etc, you'll get it pre-installed with windows, office, photoshop etc.

Why have a go at the guys who don't know the details like this - A PC is supposed to come with Windows XP right? They all do?

......

Stop the duplication plants, give amnesty's with a good window - not a quick earner.

./P

You often buy new computers with preloaded software. So if a customer buys a computer, how are they supposed to know that it was illegally installed and not an OEM licensed agreement to preload the software? What do you tell the police if they challenge it and it came preloaded on your computer?

If you buy a television, washing machine or DVD player it comes with documentation so does the LEGAL software including OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) versions. As with all warranties resonable notice must be given as to the terms and conditions. If a consumer fails to RTFM (read the f***ing manual) it is by their own choice.

Although I disagree with the high price of most software I do not take the view that all people are so stupid that they do not realize that a computer selling for 10,000TBT would also include an additional 60,000TBT of software.

[phil2]

If they can't close down actual business' in a shop, set up to sell pirate software how do they expect to ever be taken seriously or sincerely with these crackdowns!!

Toxin said closing them down would result to an increase in crime.

[phil2]

In Jan '09 we received a letter by regular mail from the BSA. It was a questionnaire but apart from a cover letter it was all in Thai so I ignored it.

In May we got the same thing again form them by registered mail and again I ignored it because not even my wife or son could translate all the questions required to be answered.

Last week Monday a lady from BSA called and asked why we did not respond. My wife explained that we can only fill in the questionnaire if they have it in English and gave her our gmail e-mail address to send it to us. As of yet no word from them.

We have no problems as far as our two business PCs are concerned, they are clean. My only worry is that they may take the PCs away for inspection and then I'm stuck during that time.

opalhort

Simply install Linux, and when they call. turn on the PCs for them to see that you don't run bill gates on your machines.

[kudroz]

I personally think this is a great initiative. It is sure to incentivize companies to go for open source alternatives instead of pirated software. But if they are seizing computers to run their check - it's a serious problem. While the initiative has merit, the execution falls short. I'm not sure exactly how they're executing these checks, but one would hope they are not seizing the computers for days/weeks?!? I welcome them to come to our office but if they take our computers for a few days it will have a serious effect on productivity as we're an IT company and rely on our computers to do 100% of the work.

Any ideas how long they seize the computers for?

[Netfan]

I'd have to agree. Buy a PC in pantip etc etc, you'll get it pre-installed with windows, office, photoshop etc.

Why have a go at the guys who don't know the details like this - A PC is supposed to come with Windows XP right? They all do?

......

Stop the duplication plants, give amnesty's with a good window - not a quick earner.

./P

You often buy new computers with preloaded software. So if a customer buys a computer, how are they supposed to know that it was illegally installed and not an OEM licensed agreement to preload the software? What do you tell the police if they challenge it and it came preloaded on your computer?

If you buy a television, washing machine or DVD player it comes with documentation so does the LEGAL software including OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) versions. As with all warranties resonable notice must be given as to the terms and conditions. If a consumer fails to RTFM (read the f***ing manual) it is by their own choice.

Although I disagree with the high price of most software I do not take the view that all people are so stupid that they do not realize that a computer selling for 10,000TBT would also include an additional 60,000TBT of software

I bought my daughter a PC at Tesco - that would be Tesco Lotus, the international company. The tag on the display model said "Windows installed". Got it home and a couple of days later the "you are a victim of counterfeit software" pops up. So its not just little shops in Panthip selling the fake stuff. And when I went back I was told by a shocked staff that it was an extra 4500 baht for the genuine windows.

Edited November 5, 2009 by Netfan

[Arkady]

Mrs Arkady went to do a computer graphics design course at a private school in Silom and all the computers in the school were powered by pirated operating systems and software. Her flash drive got infected with hundreds of viruses every time she attended classes there. The course included instruction on how to activate bootleg versions of Adobe products.

Edited November 5, 2009 by Arkady

[froglegisgood]

I personally think this is a great initiative. It is sure to incentivize companies to go for open source alternatives instead of pirated software. But if they are seizing computers to run their check - it's a serious problem. While the initiative has merit, the execution falls short. I'm not sure exactly how they're executing these checks, but one would hope they are not seizing the computers for days/weeks?!? I welcome them to come to our office but if they take our computers for a few days it will have a serious effect on productivity as we're an IT company and rely on our computers to do 100% of the work.

Any ideas how long they seize the computers for?

Right, open source is the best alternative if you don't want to pay the price of proprietary software, and it works really well, whether it is for office or photo editor, plenty to love. Also linux have various OS very stable and easy to use, requires less cpu and memory than MS

when they raid you, and i have seen a few, they simply run a utility on each computer to check your registry and see what is installed and when it was installed. Then you get a fine, depending on how many you had running illegal software, and you have to purchase the exact version you were using. I have seen companies raided paying for adobe professional on 100 PCs when all they needed was the free reader but the stupid IT mgr thought it was easier to install the pro version for all...

They never seize your PC if you give them access and let them check it, but if it is encrypted or password protected and you refuse to let them have the password, they will seize it, so it is your choice

This is a serious action, but not new, they have been doing it for years in bangkok and many people were busted, simply people will not talk about it for their reputation

[crazyswede]

This is like a fart in the wind .. gone very quickly , just spread else where!

[R1CH]

Thailand loves to cheat the rest of the world, it's a national pastime & at the moment it's all they are capable of because of a severe lack of education in the country mixed with a burgeoning media service & a heavy display of wealth from tourism. Yes yes, the police are in on it as are most other parts of the establishment and what you need to understand is that it is accepted & encouraged. It's part of the national psyche as they try to catch up with the rest of the world & no matter what official press releases say, you can be sure that the real message is "We really don't care what you want or what you say, we are the Thai people & we are autonomous. You are inferior and one day you will realise it. In the meantime we will play your games, talk your talk & make what profit we can along the way in order to benefit our nation"

QED

[cecco]

what a joke.

bust the companies paying taxes and employing tax paying staff, and let all the other filth slide.

Computer software is a large expense to companies, and some countries already monitor this closely, some countries, mostly in Asia, have been given great lenience, and making the competition in pricing to their advantage as they do not have the costs associated with other countries. This is a good idea, also, this soft ware is not written, updated, and viruses written, etc, for free, although to my knowledge, viruses are always written for "fun." I once had a professer who was a class act hacker. she was brilliant beyond my ability to see light in my eyes, and so she hacked everybody "for fun." She was just bored, beautiful, young woman!

I am glad to see them do this and try to make the costs of doing business reasonably allocated.

But, after saying this, I am not a world order, super power control idiot, so i Just want to see all nations individually obey a select number of rules and policies, and this would be one of them.

Another one is that I don't want to read about Gatoey and transvestites on ThaiVisa, but that is probably going to be an ignored request.

[hkt83100]

A PC is supposed to come with Windows XP right?

A PC should come without anything installed, just order your free operating system on a bootable CD from (K)ubuntu and you are up and running...

Well, at least you don't have to be afraid of visitors...

[SebD]

If the big software providers sold their producst at an acceptable price, they'd still be billionaires cuz no-one would bother ripping it off. We'd all CHOOSE to buy it.

Same goes for music CDs and movie DVDs.

If a hardware manufacturer can research, develop, test, manufacture, package and ship the likes of video cards, modems, USB controllers and on and on for under £20 (and even under £10) - including a cut for everyone along the way that handles it, then I'm sure MS, Adobe, Symantec and the like could do the same for a lousy CD carrying a disclaimer that the product doesn't promise to do anything at all (even work).

[niebla]

Software police target Phuket businesses

Phuket Gazette IT Manager Seubsak ('Big') Sahaworaphan.

PHUKET: -- As part of a nationwide investigation, Phuket businesses are being investigated closely by police for using illegal computer software.

A Gazette source said a 'high profile' property investment firm was raided earlier this week.

Police are said to have seized hardware and software, all allegedly unlicensed. The company was given a million baht fine, the source said.

Following news of the raid, a number of Phuket businesses reportedly closed for the day.

Colonel Sarayuth Pooltanya, deputy commander of the Royal Thai Police Economic and Cyber Crimes Division (ECD), said late last month that "all businesses will have to ensure that they are compliant with the Thai Copyright Act."

"Major efforts" to target companies using pirated software began on October 26, he said.

A list of 1,000 suspect companies nationwide compiled by the ECD has been based on tips, some anonymous. These are typically from sources within the target companies.

Leads are also being shared by the Business Software Alliance, which runs a toll-free hotline and website for informants to report on the use of pirated and unlicensed business software.

In recent months, the ECD has stepped up enforcement of intellectual property rights in respect of software.

August marked one of the ECD's most successful months, with 15 substantial raids netting 54.5 million baht's worth of allegedly non-copyright software.

The raided companies came from a wide variety of industries, including manufacturing, real estate, automobiles, shipping, design and engineering.

Phuket Gazette IT Manager Seubsak Sahaworaphan said businesses should perform regular checks to make sure employees are not downloading illegal software.

"We use a software checking device called System Hound which is installed in all our computers and has a centralized network control point," he said.

"The system performs regular checks on all of our computers and makes sure all licenses are up to date," he said.

It was not reported if or when the probe would be expanded to include computer companies that load up hard drives with illegal software when selling new machines to customers.

-- Phuket Gazette & The Nation 2009-11-05

_______________________________________________________

-->> Get the Nation/Thaivisa news faster via SMS:

-->> 14 days free trial, dial *424010011 on your mobile

What about Schools? Will they be targeted?

[harrycallahan]

What about Schools? Will they be targeted?

Yeah, and orphanages, and aged care facilities, and institutes for the blind, care facilities for the terminally ill..... how important is software piracy?

[Dakhar]

I was thinking about the hospitals & colleges!!!!!

I bet they will get a free pass

[Hawaiian]

Could it be that is in response to the new stringent rules being written for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)? Obama and others are in Seoul,

Korea right now planning to clamp down (crack down) on this type of activity. It is supposed to a secret meeting. Some secret if the Thais know it.

[nakedAIR1300]

It seems to me a kind of joke compared to the real problems of the country.....

couldnt agree with you more

ignore the REAL problems and concentrate on extracting money from easy targets

if you compare the crackdowns with that of other western countries, Thailand is a joke

I just hope someone makes this nonsense stop before its too late

is there anyone out there??

[badgerbailey]

I have been using Ubuntu for 3 years now and can definitely say that there is nothing that I need windows for. One of the main problems that some companies I deal with encounter when they try to run Linux is certain Thai programs won't run on it, i.e. Express accounting, Thai software dictionary. I think if these companies could provide support for Linux then these companies would make the switch. There is also one accounting program that I used to like to use for my business, but I just installed virtualbox and had a very fast windows xp at the click of a button, all from inside my Ubuntu machine.

Edited November 6, 2009 by badgerbailey

[hhiser]

 555555555555+

What a joke, can you even buy a licensed copy of a Microsoft OS in Thailand? And why should you pay for that crap OS. People the world over are vicitims of its multitude of security flaws! Pay for crap get crap, Pirate crap get crap for free! Then you have enough money to buy something worth the money (almost) you pay for it!