In April 1992, Thailand was named a Priority Foreign Country under Special 301. During the spring, under the threat of trade retaliation, the Thai Government initiated strong enforcement actions and raids, primarily in the audio and video areas. The Thai Government also began drafting a revised copyright law. On the basis of these letters and continued enforcement, USTR removed Thailand from its status as a Priority Foreign Country and placed it on the Priority Watch List effective September 21, 1993. Thailand is to continue to make sufficient progress against copyright piracy.
Audio piracy is under control, but in some other sectors Thailand is actually losing ground.
Enforcement issues vary by industry, and are detailed below. In general, though, figures provided to the U.S. Embassy indicate that enforcement activity in 1995, far from increasing with the passage of the new copyright law, actually slipped back to the levels experienced in 1993. Judicial procedures still present an unwarranted barrier to copyright enforcement. Long delays are common in the judicial system, and copyright owners are forced to waste time and money satisfying pointless procedural requirements. The long-standing problems in the Thai courts led the government to promise the U.S., as long ago as August 1993, that it would set up specialized intellectual property courts, in which specially trained judges would handle infringement cases.