This judgement came after two major TV broadcasters in South Korea sued the website for copyright violation.
Nusara Kanjanakul, director of the legal office of the Commerce Ministry’s Intellectual Property Department, said yesterday that the website had violated the Copyright Act BA 2558 on two counts, including modifying, copying and distributing content to the public without permission from copyright owners.
Moreover, if the website owner has earned revenue from advertising and used those for commercialise, it could also be subject to civil and criminal cases.
Under the Copyright Act, if Kodhit.com has benefited commercially from its actions, its owner could be subject to six months to four years in jail, and/or Bt100,000 to Bt800,000 in fines. But if there was no commercial benefit, it will face a fine of Bt20,000 to Bt200,000.
Recently, Kodhit.com decided to discontinue its popular Korean TV series with Thai subtitles after it was sued by Seoul Broadcasting System and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation, both based in the South Korean capital.
Meanwhile, a provider of legal online video-on-demand (VOD) service said it welcomed this move as it would protect high-value intellectual property (IP).
Artima Suraphongchai, head of marketing at iflix Thailand, told The Nation yesterday that taking legal action against private websites that had infringed content copyrights was a common trend globally to protect investment in the creation of IP.
“The recent decision of the two media companies in South Korea was not surprising for our industry because they have the right to protect their own IP, which has been created by their own investment and creativity,” she said.
However, she acknowledged that one reason people were attracted to pirated content was that the current legal offerings did not meet their needs. The challenge is for legal services like iflix to work with studios to meet the needs of consumers better in terms of offerings and price.
As well, content owners should seek proper ways to work with legal players in online VOD business to offer valued service legally.
“The rights of content creators and owners must be respected,” she stressed.

They would be mainly individual travellers, families and company employees.
Growth in inbound numbers has slowed over past few months, particularly from the China market.
China is Thailand’s largest source of foreign visitors, with 7.9 million coming last year and 10 million projected to head here this year.
However, the Chiang Mai Tourism Business Association saw only 25,000 Chinese touring the northern province during Golden Week last month, down about 5,000-10,000 from the same holiday period in 2015.
Some tour operators fear that the country risks losing up to 800,000 Chinese tourists because of the crackdown. Zero-dollar tours offer what looks like cheap travel, but customers end up facing a lot of add-ons once they reach their destinations.
Thai AirAsia also predicts tourist arrivals from China falling 10-15 per cent because of the crackdown, but the budget airline is leaving its overall target at 17 million passengers for this year.
The airline is also set to focus on the Indochina market to substitute for the China market.
Kobkarn, however, insisted that total arrivals this year would remain growing and the China market was not affected.
To strengthen tourism in the final quarter of this year, TAT plans to organise many events such as “Jazz in the World Heritage” in Ayutthaya and to promote the nine royal routes initiated by the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
TAT expects that tourists and domestic travellers will generate Bt609 billion in revenue this quarter, better by 1.2 per cent than the final quarter last year.
Tourism revenue for the entire year now is expected to be Bt2.48 trillion, higher than the Bt2.40 trillion forecast earlier.

MAS managing director Ravi Menon said at the Fintech Conference yesterday that under the pilot system, banks will deposit cash as collateral with the MAS in exchange for MAS-issued digital currency.
The banks can later redeem the digital currency for cash.
The banks can pay each other directly with this digital currency instead of first sending payment instructions through the MAS.
“This is an improvement over current large-value payment systems that are centrally operated,” Menon said. “It strengthens resilience and lowers costs.”
The project, he added, marks the first step in the MAS’s exploration of ways to harness the potential of central bank-issued digital currency.
It is also just one of several initiatives that the MAS has embarked on in its quest to create a smart financial centre in Singapore, Menon said at the conference, which is part of a week-long Singapore Fintech Festival.
For example, he also announced that the MAS was yesterday publishing its “regulatory sandbox” guidelines (software security mechanism) to encourage and enable experimentation of innovative technology to deliver financial products and services.

Guidelines
These guidelines incorporate feedback from the public and learning points from actual sandbox applications, and clarify the MAS’s expectations on the sandbox, while allowing for greater flexibility to firms looking to enter a sandbox.
Menon also announced the launch of a “finance-as-a-service: API PlayBook”, developed by the MAS and the Association of Banks in Singapore.
API, or application programming interface, is a set of codes for building software and applications.
A company can open up its API so that third-party developers can integrate them into new apps. For example, a start-up could make use of the Google Maps API to build a new app that has a map function within it.
The playbook includes common and useful APIs that financial institutions could expose and standardised as digital services, to foster collaboration within the financial sector and with other sectors.
It also includes technical and information security standards for financial institutions and broader financial technology, or fintech, ecosystem to securely share data and conduct transactions, as well as remove technical uncertainties that may hinder the adoption of APIs.
Menon also announced yesterday that the MAS will now allow insurers to offer online a full suite of life insurance products without advice.
Up until now, insurers were only allowed to offer online, without advice, simple term life and direct purchase policies with broadly standardised features.
The MAS will be issuing guidance on the safeguards to be put in place for online distribution of life insurance products.

Bala Chakravarthy, professor of strategy leadership and execution at IMD Southeast Asia, said disruptive technologies would have a significant impact on the product and service, media, entertainment, retail, financial, telecommunications, tourism, manufacturing, health, medical, and oil and gas industries.
Disruptive technologies will replace old technologies and spawn new industries and products.
In his keynote speech at the “Thailand: Moving with Disruptive Technologies” forum held by the Thammasat Economics Association, Chakravarthy said the evolution of technology would create great successful start-up companies called unicorns, those with more than US$1 billion (Bt35.5 billion) in market capitalisation.
There are more than 174 unicorn companies around the world. Of the top 25 unicorns, about 13 are in Asia, including eight in China, four in India and one in South Korea.
“For Thailand, the country needs to create an environment that is appropriate with the growth of local start-ups.
“They include the development of science and technology, the granting of free funding support and the creation of a market to cater to those start-up companies,” he said.
Varakorn Samakoses, a well-known economist and educator and rector of Dhurakij Pundit University, said disruptive technologies and innovation would produce significant changes not only in businesses’ circumstances, but also in people’s daily living and behaviour.
It is quite different from sustaining technologies, which have been changed gradually.
Examples of disruptive technologies are mobile Internet, automation knowledge work, Internet of Things, advanced robotics, the cloud, nearly autonomous vehicles, next-generation genomics and storage, 3D printing and renewable electricity sources.
“In the banking sector, for example, we can see many evolutions driven by disruptive technologies, such as the emerge of online and mobile banking and the unbundling of banks by financial technology providers, the expansion of ATM capabilities, peer-to-peer payments and other new payment technologies,” he said.
Thepchai Yong, editor-in-chief of Nation Multimedia Group (NMG), said digital technology had significantly affected the media industry, especially newspapers, which have been facing a gradual slide in both sales and advertising revenue.
“It is close to the day when newspapers will be displayed in museums. It is not expected that in the future our children will read newspapers any more,” he said.
The challenge for NMG is that it has launched its digital TV channels in the market among many alternative media.
“While traditional media have decreased their role, we are not able to raise enough revenue from digital media,” he said.
NMG has operated many diversified media, from printing to TV and radio. The big question is that in five years, will these businesses still exist?
“Do we still operate the newspaper business in the future when people do not read them? How we will adjust our people, who have worked with the company for 20-30 years and are familiar with those traditional media?” he said.
Local media operators have also been facing a big challenge, as people can access information very quickly. They need not wait for the mainstream media any more, Thepchai said.
“In the past, mainstream media, especially newspapers and television, were opinion leaders to the public. However, with the emergence of new media, power has been shifted to the hands of individuals and people, who become reporters themselves,” he said.
In social media, for instance, there is no screening for any wrong information that might arise.
“Mainstream media need to keep their role of credibility. They should be a trust pillar for society so that the people can access real information,” he said.
Kamonwan Wipulakorn, president of Erawan Group, said the hotel industry had been dealing with technologies, such as in online booking and accounting, for a long time to cater to individual travellers from around the world.
“Technologies help us to be more efficient. However, we need to adjust all the time to deal with any new technologies and cope with the changes in people’s behaviour,” she said.
For example, guests can now check in with their own mobile phones.
Disruptive digital technologies, such as social networks, have had a positive impact on hotel operators, she said. While in the past consumer profiles were limited to the 25-60-years age group, now the range is 18-80.
“What we need to do to deal with such disruptive technologies is to stay focused on our core competencies and find the right partners along the supply chain,” she said.
“Hotels is an experience business. The interaction with humans is still our basic requirement.”
Amy Kunrojpanya, director of public policy and communications for Asia-Pacific at Uber, said disruptive technologies would bring opportunities and benefits to companies.
“Disruptive technologies will allow us to see pictures in the future, and make them real for today,” she said.
“For Uber, which is an American worldwide online transportation network company, we have seen the cause of traffic congestion, as everyone needs to have and drive their own vehicle.
“And we deal with disruptive technologies to return time to individual passengers, giving them safety while travelling, and providing a chance for everybody to reach the source.
“They can build additional income,” she said.

The two partners plan to build a world-class PLA polymerisation plant with a capacity of 75,000 tonnes per year at Corbion’s site in Thailand that already has a lactide (PLA monomer) production unit that will become part of the joint venture.
Corbion will supply the lactic acid necessary for the production of the PLA and the lactide.
The new company will be based in the Netherlands and will launch operations in the first quarter of 2017, subject to regulatory approvals.
PLA is a bio-based, biodegradable polymer obtained by fermenting renewable resources (sugar or starch) to produce lactic acid.
PLA is mainly used for food packaging, disposable tableware and textiles, as well as in numerous other industries such as oil and gas, electronics, automotive and 3D printing.

STIEBEL ELTRON EYES ISAAN

Stiebel Eltron, a Thai manufacturer of water heaters, water filters and hand dryers, says it is stepping up marketing efforts in the Northeast.
Outside of Bangkok, the Northeast market has shown continuous growth over the past few years, which provides great confidence in investing in the region, it says.
“We have been very encouraged by our growth across the country, and the Northeast region is very important for Stiebel Eltron. We are focusing efforts on supporting this growth by improving our network of marketing and sales channels throughout the nation,” said Roland Hoehn, managing director of Stiebel Eltron Asia.
The company is also developing its product line to meet the needs of new Thai consumers and has recently introduced several new products at its Ayutthaya plant.

LOYALTY REWARD APP LAUNCHED

UTU, a cross-border loyalty and rewards platform based in Singapore, has chosen Thailand for the first launch of its mobile-phone application, with a projected roll-out to include other Asian countries and the UK, Europe and the US anticipated next year.
The mobile app is available on both iOS and Android operating systems.
The UTU mobile app lets members decide where and when they can earn, redeem, convert and accumulate loyalty points at home or abroad in real time. Earning points at a fashion boutique and redeeming them at a cafe is just one of the many ways members can benefit from UTU.
UTU members can combine loyalty points from different credit and debit cards and choose where to redeem their UTU Thai or Traveler Points as cash back.

It will make them more closely aligned with their international peers under similar solvency regimes.
The RBC 2 regime is being formulated in line with the terms of the ICP17 (insurance core principles) capital-adequacy standards.
“The more robust rules will increase confidence around the financial strength of the sector. But several challenges lie ahead, in particular for medium and small players that will need to cope with potentially more stringent capital requirements,” Jeffrey Liew, head of Fitch’s Asia-Pacific insurance ratings group, said at an industry briefing organised by Fitch Ratings (Thailand) in Bangkok.
Liew also discussed Fitch’s insurance rating methodology and Prism factor-based model used in assessing the financial strength of life and non-life insurers across the Asia-Pacific region.
Underwriting, investment and capital assessments are among the many fundamental building blocks of the agency’s approach to rating the insurance sector’s financial strength.
Chuchatr Pramoolpol, deputy secretary-general of Thailand’s Insurance Commission, outlined the outlook for the country’s regulatory framework and the changes in investment and solvency rules.
Julien Godart, senior manager and Asean technology lead for Accenture Consulting Singapore, discussed the use of big data and analytics for the insurance industry to tackle fraud and improve regulatory compliance.
More than 80 participants from the regulatory, insurance and financial sectors attended the briefing.