Skip to main content

Root Kit vs Sukhumvit... DIP Stick

I have just had an absoulte shock :O

Living in Thailand (particularly Bangkok) you get used to the fact that Copyright really means the right to copy stuff and that IP is more likely to mean Internet Protocol (although even that's a leap) rather than Intellectual Property.

I have just paid full price for three CD's of Thai artists distributed in Thailand.

The distributors are GMM Grammy and More Music.

Like a lot of people today I listen to music at work, this generally means MP3. Unlike most people I don't like to be bound to Windows Media Player (the evil empire) and often spend a lot of time on Linux (be it Ubuntu or SuSe) which don't have Windows Media Player [obviously!].

So imagine my surprise to go through my usual routine of using AudioGrabber to convert my purchases to MP3 so that I can listen at work from my hard drive or play on my MP3 player during the many hours I spend on planes and the less hours that I spend in the gym (more's the pity me) to find that here of all places they've resorted to using root kits.

Many people might not realise it but there is the DIP here, the Department of Intellectual Property, you can go to their "website" here. At first I thought the blank void was the usual Thai preference of a single browser (IE) but even using IE 6.0 doesn't change the professionalism of this website design.

I have often thought that if companies are committed to stopping piracy they should do more for thier end users:
  1. Lower the price point of the pucker product. I don't condone pirated goods but where is the economic logic in being able to watch a film on "DVD" for less money then it costs me to go to the cinema
  2. Films: keep them in the theatre longer. I get a two week window of opportunity to watch a blockbuster in Thailand. This is usually a hectic period where the cinemas are over full as everyone rushes to watch the film. If the two weeks is a period where I am out of the country on business I miss out. If the film is really popular I can never get a seat and I miss out. All round pretty poor planning on the part of the distributors.
  3. Music: why should I pay the full price for a CD of my favourite artists and only be able to listen to the music at home on my CD player. Many of the CD's don't play in the car and as can be seen from my latest experience I can't now listen at work either. To put it into perspective I am at work 10 to 11 hours per day. I am at home and free for maybe 1.5 to 2 hours in the evening. If they want to get serious then make it as easy as possible for me to enjoy my full price product.
All in all I'm pretty upset. Maybe next time I should head to Sukhumvit Raod and buy the (substantially) less than full price for a less than legal copy of the media. At least I would get to use it. But then that would be proliferating the piracy and encouraging the bad behaviour.
Labels:

Comments

Paul Jardine said…
The DIP will probably be guilty of supplying certain preferred piracy ventures with rootkit information...
Then we would have the third part of the Thai 'trilogy'.
Anti-Corruption Commission found guilty of ... Corruption
Election Commission found guilty of ... Election fixing
Department of Intellectual Property found guilty of ... ?

Is this a pattern in Thailand, or am I too cynical??
6:37 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crisis Connections

What the flood situation in Thailand has shown once again is the power of social networks to fill the void of communication. In recent times the role of Facebook, Twitter, and Blackberry messenger has been shown in good and bad light.  The same methods that released the Arab Spring have also been used to coordinate the London Riots . Love them or loathe social networks are here to stay and what the floods show is how they keep people connected.  Some will say there should be no communication void if central government is on top of its game, but with a situation that can change so rapidly, and over such a large area the traditional press certainly struggle to keep the public up to date. Twitter and Facebook have been saviours for those of us outside Thailand at this time.  With roving reporters and connected people like Patee Sarasin and Jetrin out doing and tweeting many more people are kept up to date. Equally useful is the ability to time shift news updates through TV ch
Post a Comment
Read more

Voice puts the pinch on Content

Content providers in Thailand are struggling to stay afloat after a restructuring of the revenue sharing between the mobile operators and themselves. Firms like Advanced Info Service (AIS) have been offering content on their 2.5G networks here for sometime. This has spawned a number of content partners to spring up. The previous arrangement were of the order of 65% to 80%. The new arrangement sets a 50:50 split of the revenue between proivder and operator. The operators say that this is due to the operating costs of their networks and that up to now this has been a trial offering. It smells more like a knee jerk reaction to falling revenues from voice. When will the market wake up and realize that paying for voice is dead. The secret to the success of operators going forward will be in the successful channeling of content, where voice is but another type of content. This is a worrying trend. If the pinch continues then I see that most of the content partners will not survive long. This
1 comment
Read more

SKY New Zealand vaults into the 21st Century

New Zealand is a pretty country but it's also pretty slow in coming forward in many areas. It has it fair share of innovation but some parts of everyday life are still if not 20 years behind but at least 10...until now. Sky in the UK has made use of user driven options through handset interaction for some time, push the red button, Sky NZ still does not support this type of service. But this is where competition shows its value, it forces natural monopolies to innovate, and let's be honest Sky TV is a natural monopoly here by being the only digital TV service (which you have to use if you want to get a decent reception so Freeview doesn't count [yet]). Now Telecom has tied up with TiVo as the sole distributor in New Zealand Sky has had to play catch up, their response iSky. First impressions, given that the full service isn't launched yet, are good. Finally after years of me seeing other countries extending TV into the computer world with the likes of Yahoo -> TiVo
Post a Comment
Read more