Bt10M Worth Pirated Products Seized In Bangkok MBK, Indra Square Raid

[Pui]

So destroy the items, before they get misplaced and find themselves back on the shelves of some VIP's shop.

Why not get Apple involved to prosecute as well, this then sends a bigger message to those who copy products.

Do you really think that if Apple had not ordered this investigation,this event would have even happened.

If apple was involved it would have insisted that all "unauthorised resellers" be closed and fined as well ie the shops that sell Ipad's Iphones without a apple account.

As this was only one firm that was closed I guess they missed some payments or upset someone they should not have. These KIRF (keeping it real fake) products do not harm the brand imo, it simply puts a "designer" brand in the reach of people that could not afford it, although you get what you pay for.

Yes I agree this will have had nothing to do with Apple. If it was we may have heard the goods where handed over to the Apple rep for investigation.

No these goods will find there way back into shops. These are high ticket items and this is daylight robbery.

With regards to counterfeit software for the iPad. Once its on there you cannot (currently in 4.2) sync it with iTunes. Thats a serious pain and not worth it since the original apps are so cheap. I guess its worth it if you want loads of games but otherwise its a big hassle. Apple have really locked this thing down.

Edited January 13, 2011 by Pui

[patayayaya]

police are really cracking down on the real hardcore crooks here pfffffffff

[Sonkind]

interesting argument

go copies of articles enhance the value of the genuine or not?

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery etc...free advertising free promotion and of course affordable elevation in stature for those that are sporting the genuine article.

Yes, basically obtaining something one did not labor or cannot pay for.

This attitude seems endemic in societies these days with what is basically

a redistribution of wealth - sometimes by force (government - but not limited to it).

The high-production-quality films have extremely high production costs as with other products which

have high R&D costs. The the investors cannot get a return on these investments

then what?

Agree with the so called "jailbroken" Apple products, although there is always a way past it, but actually looking at the picture and seeing what looks like a 7 inch Ipad copy tells me these are just cheap copies with apple logo's on them. I cannot see how these products harm apple as they are obviously lower quality- bad screens, horrible software- and with the amount of marketing apple does people know what to expect when buying these products.

[moskito]

I understood to seize conterfeit IPods or other electronic stuff, its mostly very poor manufactured and broken after a couple of month. The shops sale it as originals and thats fraud on customers. But I will never understand the T-shirt thing. Every customer knows its faked and Thailand make a fortune out of these goods while the huge companies like NIKE or Abercrombie dont loose anything, of if so, not in big numbers.

Funny they raided just some shops and all of the same owner....may be he refused to pay enough bribes here, like usual. Otherwise nobody can explain why they seized items of 5 shops while 15478556 others around them sale the same crap

All in all, business as usual in Land of Scams

[beejoir]

5 shops!

[MaxYakov]

There is nothing wrong with counterfeit goods. It's good competition for the real goods, helping force the legitimate goods' prices lower.

Exactly! Police should go after real crooks, the violent kind.

Yes! And while they're at it they should let Bernie Madoff out ... after all he wasn't 'violent' and the mayhem he visited on investors with his ponzi didn't do any real harm, did it?

[snowflake]

When it comes to Pirate copied DVD's, they are getting better...

Now if I could go to tesco and buy an original movie for 150-200b (like the Thai original is) I would do that, but how can one justify that the Thai version of a movie is 500b cheaper than the original English version?

Phones, electrical stuff, are sometimes better than the original, but most often worse. I have bought one or two phones for fun, just to see if I like them (then buy the original phone)...

Tires and other important items, originals (though the dealers will tell you most of the time if it is original or copy...

Intellectual property is a bit silly sometimes, but I agree, the people who invents something should get paid, but how much???

[moskito]

There is nothing wrong with counterfeit goods. It's good competition for the real goods, helping force the legitimate goods' prices lower.

Exactly! Police should go after real crooks, the violent kind.

Yes! And while they're at it they should let Bernie Madoff out ... after all he wasn't 'violent' and the mayhem he visited on investors with his ponzi didn't do any real harm, did it?

Excuse me, but guys like Madoff they should burn just for what they stand for! Making money without ever touch anything but paper or some keys on a keyboard. THEY are the real disease

of our time and the world should be a much better place without them.....btw. ABSOLUTELY OFF TOPIC

[BigBikeBKK]

5 shops! Guess who didn't pay their protection money? What a joke. Life goes on. Nothing changes. TiT :jap:

[fred110]

There is nothing wrong with counterfeit goods. It's good competition for the real goods, helping force the legitimate goods' prices lower.

I used to buy fake stuff all the time. Then i realized that i was just wasting my money, as everything that was a "copy" either didn't work or broke within a few weeks.

I've never had a problem and I buy a copy when possible. DVDs, Windows...

[fred110]

interesting argument

go copies of articles enhance the value of the genuine or not?

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery etc...free advertising free promotion and of course affordable elevation in stature for those that are sporting the genuine article.

Yes, basically obtaining something one did not labor or cannot pay for.

This attitude seems endemic in societies these days with what is basically

a redistribution of wealth - sometimes by force (government - but not limited to it).

The high-production-quality films have extremely high production costs as with other products which

have high R&D costs. The the investors cannot get a return on these investments

then what?

Then what? Stop paying hack actors 10 million $$ per movie!

[pacovl46]

Ooops, looks like zirtel forgot to pay the monthly bribes.

[starbaseone]

I Agree. Apple should replace their logo with a Pig. the iPig, the greediest company in the world. Don't we have better things to do than help an overpriced company continue to overcharge customers? Aren't there some violent crimes we should be solving instead?

There is nothing wrong with counterfeit goods. It's good competition for the real goods, helping force the legitimate goods' prices lower.

Exactly! Police should go after real crooks, the violent kind.

[MaxYakov]

interesting argument

go copies of articles enhance the value of the genuine or not?

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery etc...free advertising free promotion and of course affordable elevation in stature for those that are sporting the genuine article.

Yes, basically obtaining something one did not labor or cannot pay for.

This attitude seems endemic in societies these days with what is basically

a redistribution of wealth - sometimes by force (government - but not limited to it).

The high-production-quality films have extremely high production costs as with other products which

have high R&D costs. The the investors cannot get a return on these investments

then what?

Agree with the so called "jailbroken" Apple products, although there is always a way past it, but actually looking at the picture and seeing what looks like a 7 inch Ipad copy tells me these are just cheap copies with apple logo's on them. I cannot see how these products harm apple as they are obviously lower quality- bad screens, horrible software- and with the amount of marketing apple does people know what to expect when buying these products.

Heh, heh, 'jailbroken Apple products'. Haven't heard that one. Maybe I'm not 'in' enough. The closest to that term I've heard was from a thief who described his 'liberation' of his ill-gotten goods. The consumer plays a role in this by unconsciously following the 'herd mentality' with fanatical brand loyalty and status-seeking, allowing Apple to charge much higher prices for their product. I believe this stifles competition. One of my son's is a Sony fanatic, yet tried to get me to buy an Apple computer. When I asked him why he hadn't bought an Apple the said that they were over-priced. So he was forced to live with an inferior MS operating system, however, by running Sony.

I bought a Nex 1A MP3 player years ago to go against the herd and it was reasonably priced compared to IPod. Recently bought an Apple MacBook (used) and discovered the severe, endemic and very-expensive-to-repair (replace, actually) problems in its so called 'Superdrive' as well as (according to the technician) endemic problems in their early-release cooling fans which cost 3,200 THB to replace (1/10 what I paid for the computer). It would have been more cost-effective to run Linux on a cheap,reliable laptop. But then, again, I wouldn't have that high-status and cleverly-lit Apple symbol on the case to impress everyone at Starbucks.

[ianbaggie]

There is nothing wrong with counterfeit goods. It's good competition for the real goods, helping force the legitimate goods' prices lower.

If you were the legitimate owner of a business who had paid research and marketing cost you wouldnt think like that

[elshaheen]

MBK. That place is nothing more than one big counterfeit shop. Especially on the 3rd and 4th floor. So, close down those floors down. Never would happen, free advertisement provided by DSI.

Funny, DSI never hits Silom at night.

[bonobo]

There is nothing wrong with counterfeit goods. It's good competition for the real goods, helping force the legitimate goods' prices lower.

I disagree. When something passes itself off as the original, the customer is getting scammed.

Knock-offs are different. No one thinks they are the Polo/Apple/Microsoft/whatever. But counterfeit are ripping off the customers as well as the real manufacturers.

[MaxYakov]

There is nothing wrong with counterfeit goods. It's good competition for the real goods, helping force the legitimate goods' prices lower.

Exactly! Police should go after real crooks, the violent kind.

Yes! And while they're at it they should let Bernie Madoff out ... after all he wasn't 'violent' and the mayhem he visited on investors with his ponzi didn't do any real harm, did it?

Excuse me, but guys like Madoff they should burn just for what they stand for! Making money without ever touch anything but paper or some keys on a keyboard. THEY are the real disease

of our time and the world should be a much better place without them.....btw. ABSOLUTELY OFF TOPIC

Missed my sarcasm, huh? ABSOLUTELY ON TOPIC. Bernie was selling counterfeit goods - a fake investment.

The smart ones figured it out before buying and saved their A$ets!

The response was to an opinion that there was nothing wrong with counterfeit goods

and that the perps are not worthy of police-focus relative to 'violent' criminals - police-focus at MBK being the

subject of the article, BTW.

[inmysights]

Be interesting to scrutinize the busting authorities' computers and households. I'd bet dollars to donuts they all have pirated stuff in their homes ....software in their computers, DVDs, etc.

Fact is, we all have pirated stuff around the house. I'm not justifying it, but it's just the way things are. And yes, it can get overdone, and there are inherent problems. Pirated software often has malware, pirated DVD's are often poor quality (I've got a Johnny Depp DVD which spells his name on the cover; 'Johnny Deep').

I also produce copyrighted material: several books, some music, and an audio book, - so am concerned about piracy from the other end of the trough. I'm not big selling author, but even the little guys (like me) don't want their material copied and sold cheap - particularly if the copies are poor quality.

The other side of the coin are the stratopheric residuals paid to entertainment stars - some making tens of millions per year. For most people, there perhaps no such thing as 'too rich' but come on, a million dollars per 1 hour episode for acting in a sit-com!? It's factoids like that which make it ok, in my view, for impoverished folks to get some entertaining DVD for $1 instead of $15.

And most of the hyped crap that passes for film making these days isn't worth the download bandwidth, let alone 100 baht or 15 quid plus.

[selftaopath]

It's Christmas for the wives, kids and girlfriends of these cops

And where are all the confiscated items at the airport taken???? LOL

If you think they are destroyed you are sadly mistaken.

How a/b that dear "policing" govt?

[Arkady]

"As for owners of the retail space, the DSI has warned them that if violators of the intellectual property law were arrested on their premises again, the landlords would also face legal action. The shop managers were initially charged with selling counterfeit products carrying patented trademarks and would be sent along with evidence to police."

Have been hearing this empty threat for the last couple of decades but can't remember any big, well connected landlords like MBK or Pantip ever having any problems on this score and they clearly never take any action to prevent their tenants from selling pirated goods. The fact that one gang stored pirated goods in the Government House car park speaks volumes about the connections of the gangs and the government's determination to stamp it out.

On the other hand I am confused about how foreign record companies expect me to buy their legitimate products since iTunes, Amazon and etc refuse to sell me their products online when they can see my computer is in Thailand. The Russian download sites fortunately don't discriminate against Thai purchasers and have a wide selection at the same quality as iTunes and Amazon and at a fraction of the price. Am I expected to sit in silence or download and listen the songs I want within minutes? Naturally I do the former and would never advocate an illegal practice on TV.

[jayjay0]

I think this is a good thing. There seems to be an inherent arrogance and disregard and respect for the laws here. Not only just just the suppliers, but the sellers that that might just be working any job they can get, but go after the force behind those that employ them and the police that are being paid to look the other way. Any politician that is caught being a part of these kinds of schemes should face serious charges for misuse of power and stealing from the the country. Charge them with theft and make restitution mandatory. Over 100 billion baht is lost in the lined pockets of the corrupt every year, that should be going towards the good of the country.

Agreed

Interesting to note that the government is losing money. Do you think that they are behind this.

Some times I just get the feeling that a lot of people are unwilling to let Thailand change. With the present Government there has been many changes. But they are overlooked in favor of what has not changed of witch there is a lot.

In the west we have a saying "Rome wasn't built in a day"

Give Thailand a break. As I have said on other threads corruption in Thailand is no worse than it was in the states. They grew out of it so will Thailand.

[mic6ard]

This is not a surprise at all. Targetting one store is pretty much the MO for this type of thing. In Thailand, it is pretty impossible to control and eliminate all counterfeit sellers, there are just too many. I see some people mentioning Panthip Plaza as a target, I've been there one morning where 90% of the stores were closed, mainly software stores. Asked around and was told to come back in the mid afternoon... I hope people get the message in this. They know a raid is coming, so they don't open.

This is how it works here unfortunately. Certain people makes more money tipping off, than they do work the case. If they were to get serious on this: Pantip would be pretty empty, as would MBK. Major lose of income to many people.

If the government were to open up all the offices around the country, I'm sure that all would have some form pirated software in most of the computers.

All of us have been part of the problem too, providing friends with copy of music CDs or even compiled into MP3s. That's counterfeiting!.

Remember those double deck tape players? Able to directly copy the cassette. Recording movies from TVs?

On that note, this is the reason why ps3 isn't as popular as the previous models, or even when compare to the Xbox and Wii. The game can't be copied, or if it could, the machine wouldn't play it. And probably the reason why we can't buy songs on Itunes if your account is base in Thailand.

Remember a news story about a man being charged with selling CD without a license, a couple of month ago? Dude, he fished the things out of someone's trash.

[Igor]

Ever so slightly off topic:

Anybody know what OS these counterfeit iPads, iPhones, etc. run on?

I'm surprised with Android being free and very capable, not to see a lot of fake Galaxy Tabs, etc.

In fact, maybe I have a poor eye, but here in Chiang Mai, I haven't seen any fake tablets. Fake watches, sure. Copied DVDs? Absolutely. I even saw one software vendor selling a copy of Windows 8 ! Time traveling pirates? But no fake iPads, no fake Tabs. Is there no market in the north?

[101734]

Knock-offs are different. No one thinks they are the Polo/Apple/Microsoft/whatever.

Like this guy....or maybe he thought he got a bargain?

[mic6ard]

I think this is a good thing. There seems to be an inherent arrogance and disregard and respect for the laws here. Not only just just the suppliers, but the sellers that that might just be working any job they can get, but go after the force behind those that employ them and the police that are being paid to look the other way. Any politician that is caught being a part of these kinds of schemes should face serious charges for misuse of power and stealing from the the country. Charge them with theft and make restitution mandatory. Over 100 billion baht is lost in the lined pockets of the corrupt every year, that should be going towards the good of the country.

Agreed

Interesting to note that the government is losing money. Do you think that they are behind this.

Some times I just get the feeling that a lot of people are unwilling to let Thailand change. With the present Government there has been many changes. But they are overlooked in favor of what has not changed of witch there is a lot.

In the west we have a saying "Rome wasn't built in a day"

Give Thailand a break. As I have said on other threads corruption in Thailand is no worse than it was in the states. They grew out of it so will Thailand.

Will we grow out of it?? You think so? Cos I see the country going backwards. Changes has to start at the top. I saw a party of high ranking officials in a restaurant, none of the wine had the tax stamped. One was a Penfold with a twist top!!!!!! They don't make twist top for Penfolds as far as I know.

The middle class also has to change the habit of 'gotta have'. You know what I mean? Gotta have the lastest in fashion and accessories. Why spend $$$$ when you can get a 95% accurate copy for $$.

[maydagirl]

did anybody notice that its only FIVE shops????!!!!!????

they could raid and arrest the whole MBK if they actually meant for piracy to end. such a joke. lol

[junglist]

There is nothing wrong with counterfeit goods. It's good competition for the real goods, helping force the legitimate goods' prices lower.

Exactly! Police should go after real crooks, the violent kind.

Like the Police!

If thaivisa had a like button it would be pressed. sad but true. Thai Serpico were are you?

[Bagwan]

I'm just wondering how many angry people here are using pirated versions of Microsoft software. Buy a new PC and its loaded with dodgy software. Pots and kettles?

[rayw]

There is nothing wrong with counterfeit goods. It's good competition for the real goods, helping force the legitimate goods' prices lower.

Spot on. It is because some of these corporate giants are so rip off greedy and over price their goods which sometimes have little competition or if they have are price "protected" to some extent by illegal cartels. The wicked right wing at work again. As I view it normal folk are getting peed off with being ripped off by the corporate giants and many other right wing organisations and will always find ways to buy pirate goods, the whole western financial system is flawed and doomed to more failures unless changed.

So I am all for these counterfeit items as long as they are not being sold as originals as that is deceit which is the real dishonesty. Like the old music industry which used to sell CD's at ridiculous prices until the piracy forced them down, same with over inflated software like Adobe Photoshop and the like, of course they are going to be pirated and only a sensible fair price for the original will stop that happening, nothing else will succeed and probably then the originating software house would make more profit by much increased sales (with very low unit production costs) and little piracy which would not be needed or worthwhile.