Phuket Travel Forum

I have read of market vendors rioting in Bangkok due to Police raids and confiscating their pirated goods...Sending tourists scurrying back to their hotels...Shots were fired..!!...Does anybody know if police raids on piracy are happening in Phuket...??...Supposedly the Thai government is being heavied by US and NZ governments for not doing enough about the piracy problem...
And I read that it is now an offence to bring pirate copies of anything back into New Zealand.Fines and convictions enforced @ customs..!!??...Is this true..??...

I live in Thailand and go down to see friends in Phuket every couple of months or so and i haven't heard anything as bad as this. Shots were fired? Tourist scurrying back to their hotels? Rioting??
Yes, there is the odd raid now and then but nothing as dramatic as this!!

Buying pirate copies is theft anyway. If you get caught in NZ customs, serves you right (perhaps not you personally!)

I do not know anything happening in Thailand. But the US and New Zealand are by far not the only countries that do not allow bring pirated copyright goods into the country.

Under "Prohibited and restricted goods" you find the paragraph for New Zealand:

http://www.newzealand.com/travel/getting-to-around-nz/getting-to-nz/customs-immigration/customs-immigration_home.cfm

I am not 100% sure how it is enforced here in NZ, as the law has some flaws, as stated here:

What can be done to stop counterfeit goods entering New Zealand?

Border control remains New Zealand’s main weapon against counterfeit goods because most of these goods are not manufactured here and must enter the country from overseas. For this reason, the most effective and cost efficient method to stop counterfeit goods is to prepare and file a Customs Notice with the New Zealand Customs Service. Customs has stopped over one million counterfeit items from entering New Zealand since the Notice system was introduced just over 10 years ago.

Customs may only detain counterfeit goods if a brand owner has lodged the required documentation; a Customs Notice and supporting evidence of rights. A Notice can be lodged for a registered trade mark and/or a copyright work.

(from: http://www.nzlaw.co.nz/documents%5CCommercial%20Issue%2013.pdf)

However, you would be very unlucky if your false Cartier watch would be seized. We are speaking of commercial quantities.

For Germany and other European countries I can say that the law says that pirated goods will be seized at the border and destroyed. But again, if you wear your pirated watch from Thailand, nobody cares. If your luggage is checked and ten such watches are found, you can be sure that they will be gone.

Frank and Kakapo..you both make a lot of sense and Kakapo's message was very interesting and informative....However,I have been one of the many thousands who have brought back pirated DVD's and clothes(private small quantities) from Thailand and did'nt have a worry in the world going thru customs...My point is now,will customs be more vigilant @ checkout on return home..??...
Yes..!!...It's so true Frank...Piracy is unlawful,and if there is no demand,there is no supply...
For more information on the riots...Please google-"Traders riot in Bangkok"(photojourn.wordpress.com/2009/

Yes, it all kicked off in the Pong last night.

The daft tourists that were hanging around taking photos after the police told them to bugger off need a reality check in the common sense department.

Scurrying back to their hotels... yeah, those with their already purchased counterfeits would have been wise to do so.

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Vendors clash with pirate goods police

BANGKOK: -- Vendors clashed with Commerce Ministry officials in Bangkok’s Patpong area on Wednesday night after they raided sellers’ booths to arrest them for intellectual property violations and confiscated their goods.

About 200 vendors and 50 commerce offiicials were involved.

Soon after the raid about 20 men armed with sticks assaulted the officials, injuring 10 of them, one seriously.

The men then fired four gunshots skywards to threaten the commerce officials, witness reports said. The situation improved after police arrived.

Officials arrested about 10 sellers and made off with four vans loaded with confiscated conterfeit goods, mostly pirate copies of bags and clothes. The arrested vendors were taken to Bang Rak police station.

Later in the night hundreds of sellers marched to Bang Rak police station to file charges against the commerce officials. Some sellers, covered in blood smears, told reporters they were assaulted by the raiding party.

The commander of Metropolitan Police area 6, responsible for the Patpong locality, negotiated with the sellers and promised to process the cases fairly.

Commerce Minister Alongkorn Ponlaboot said on television programmes on Thursday morning that raids on sellers of pirate goods would take place every two days from now on.

He said officials would be required to display identification before commencing arrests and confiscating goods.

He said the public must view the incident fairly as officials on the raid also suffered serious injuries."

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Of course there are likely to be raids in Phuket.

Unlikely they'll get as daft as the Pong. Pat Pong is run by a few groups involved in the red light business ( !!! ) and the local plod are rumoured to be happy to accept "contributions to the New Year's Party fund" from dodgy stallholders.

So when the Commerce Ministry roll up, and not the Plod, the stallholders get miffed as they believe they aren't getting what they bribed for.

I doubt Phuket will be as daft.

The reality in Thailand is that someone working at Patpong selling pirated "anything" forgot to pay his key money to the police. There is no new agenda going on and it just happened to catch a good headline, just like "Swine Flu"! Just because piracy or pirates are a big deal in western news, doesn't mean the Thais are losing one wink of sleep on the subject. The best is the front page pic on the Bangkok Post's website cover page. Check out the pick-pocket action going on in the center-right of the pic. There is a person dressed in all black, whom is having is hair pulled by a man in a white shirt and wearing a watch on his wrist. Someone has their hand in the right trouser pocket of the man in black. The hand does not belong to the man in black as he is busy defending himself and the hand appears to be in the pocket. Clearly nothing new going on at Patpong.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/

Nothing to do with forgetting to pay backhanders to local, these raids have begun after the US recently placed Thailand amongst the worst offenders of copyright brand-name infringement.

The govt has promised continued crackdowns, but will try best to avoid any violence. All your favourite pirate haunts are going to be very quiet for the time to come.

There are sporadic raids here in Phuket, but as stated above, nothing so dramatic as to frighten visitors. I have heard of occasional confiscation of pirated goods from tourists departing Phuket, but again, this is highly sporadic and doesn't seem to amount to a systematic "crackdown" in enforcing laws already long in place.

As for me, if it weren't nearly impossible to rent high-quality DVDs here on Phuket (we don't have Blockbusters here or even NetFlix), I wouldn't even touch the pirated stuff at all. The quality is so very frequently awful that it's hugely frustrating even trying to watch them. If you live in a place where for a small amount of money you can actually view non-pirated versions of the films you want to see, that's better than supporting the piracy industry in Asia, IMO. If you love a film so much you simply have to own it, spring for an authentic copy.