Bt43 mn illegal goods destroyed

By The Nation

The Intellectual Property Department and Phuket Police on Monday jointly destroyed 217,686 items of illegal products worth Bt43 million, to show Thailand's serious attempt in cracking down IP violation.

Deputy Commerce Minister Alongkorn Ponlaboot said the the activity should help increase awareness of Thai consumers and tourists to "say no" to illegal products.

During January to October last year, the department reported 6,731 cases of IP rights infringement and seized 5.03 million illegal items, up 75 per cent from the same period in 2008.

-- The Nation 2010-02-08

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Well, I wonder how they worked out the "worth" 43 million?

Averages exactly 200 Baht/item.

Presumably they are talking about DVD's and CD's with possibly a bunch of T-shirts/jeans thrown in. Now the average cost of a blank CD/DVD is just a few Baht, so I would suggest that this 43,000,000 is a major overstatement by about a factor of 100.

By anyway, I am more interested in the other figures

During January to October last year, the department reported 6,731 cases of IP rights infringement and seized 5.03 million illegal items

That is 117,000 items every single week or 17,000 EVERY DAY!!!!

Wonder what happens to all those items, if, indeed, they are not being generous with the calculations.....

And on Tuesday 217,686 items of illegal products worth Bt43 million were sold back to the sellers and half the price- LOL

Business as usual

Instead of destroying them, they should donate them to Father Joe in BKK who could then sell them at a thrift store and use the proceeds for his charitable work with the poorest of the poor. It would have the same effect on the manufacturers and sellers but also benefit society.