You are using an outdated browser and your browsing experience will not be optimal. Please update to the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Install Microsoft Edge

March 14, 2022

The 2022 Amendment of Thailand’s Copyright Act: The Good, the Bad, and the Backstory

Subscribe to Updates

The copyright law currently in effect in Thailand is the Copyright Act B.E. 2537 (1994), which came into force in March 1995. After 20 years, a new amendment came into effect in August 2015, with a focus on updating the law for the digital age, followed by a further amendment that became effective in March 2019 to comply with the Marrakesh Treaty providing exemptions to copyright infringement for people with disabilities.

Recently, to comply with the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WCT) and update practices in combating online infringement, the Thai Copyright Act has been amended once again. This article will explore the backstory behind this amendment, highlight the law’s successes and potential areas of concern, and explain what copyright owners, practitioners, and—most importantly—internet service providers (ISPs) should be aware of in order to comply with this law, which was published in the Government Gazette on February 24, 2022, and will become effective on August 23, 2022.

The Backstory

Despite the modernizing focus of the 2015 amendment, in recent years Thailand recognized the necessity of strengthening copyright protection and modernizing the law further to cope with online infringement problems fueled by today’s rapid technological change. Previously, the Copyright Act B.E. 2537 (1994), as amended in 2015, provided a specific mechanism to solve online copyright infringement. This mechanism, which appeared in Section 32/3 of the law, differed from the clearly defined notice-and-takedown system favored in several other countries by relying on the courts to resolve copyright infringement matters in relation to the provision on ISP liability and safe harbors. As the law did not include adequate notification procedures or rapid dispute resolution mechanisms, the implementation of Section 32/3 became impractical.

In addition, the definition of an ISP was broad, so “mere conduit” (or intermediary) ISPs would often receive court orders to remove infringing content, even though, technically, most of them were not capable of doing so. As such, the limitation of liabilities or provision of “safe harbors” for ISPs under Section 32/3 was not practically feasible. The Department of Intellectual Property thus initiated amendments to this law, with the goal of enhancing copyright protection in accordance with the WCT, clarifying ISPs’ safe harbors, adopting a notice-and-takedown system, and revising provisions on technological protection measures

Summary of the 2022 Amendments

Two notable changes introduced by the amended act are simple: an extension of the term of protection for photographic works to be the author’s lifetime plus an additional 50 years after the author’s death (an increase from the previous term of 50 years from the work’s creation), and a provision allowing members of the Copyright Committee to stay on the committee past the end of their term if new members have not yet been appointed to replace them.

However, a few other significant developments in the law are considerably more detailed. These are described below.

ISP Safe Harbors

The amended act classifies ISPs into four types:

  • Intermediary ISPs,
  • Caching ISPs,
  • Hosting ISPs, and
  • Search engine ISPs.

In addition, the amended act clarifies that “users” of ISPs are legally defined as such regardless of whether payment is required.

With these definitions established, the amended Copyright Act replaces the problematic Section 32/3 (described above) with a new section titled “Exemption of Liability of ISPs.” This newly drafted section sets out both general and specific requirements for ISPs to be exempted from liability for copyright infringement:

  • General requirements: ISPs must have explicitly announced and complied with their policies to terminate service to users who are repeat infringers. This requirement applies to all types of ISPs as a general rule.
  • Specific requirements: Each ISP must also comply with specific requirements based on its services and technical activities. Under the amended act, the obligation to remove data or block access is only for caching ISPs, hosting ISPs, and search engine ISPs. This clarifies that intermediary ISPs are not required to remove data from or block access to their systems. It is also clear that only hosting ISPs and search engine ISPs are required to provide channels for copyright owners to report infringing content.

Notice-and-Takedown System

The steps in the amended act’s notice-and-takedown procedure are as follows.

  • Under the amended act, copyright owners can send a notice of infringement to inform hosting ISPs or search engine ISPs of allegedly infringing data.
  • An ISP that has been notified must take down the data, its references, and any access points from their system, or block access, without delay. The ISP must subsequently notify the user who posted the allegedly infringing material to allow the user to oppose the removal by sending a counternotice to the ISP.
  • If such a counternotice is received, the ISP then has to forward a copy of the counternotice to the copyright owner and notify the copyright owner that it will bring back the removed content or cease blocking the access within 30 days of receiving the counternotice.
  • After the 30-day period ends, unless the copyright owner files a lawsuit against the alleged infringer/user, the ISP is required to restore the data or cease blocking access to it within 15 days.

To prevent ill-intentioned filings, the amended act prescribes that anyone who files a false notice (such as one from someone other than the copyright owner) or false counternotice is liable for any damages arising from that action.

Technological Protection Measures

The amended act revises the definition of technological protection measures (TPMs), broadening the scope to refer to technology designed to protect the rights of a copyright owner or a performer (rights control), and technology designed to effectively control access to a copyrighted work or to a recording of a performance (access control). Therefore, the new definition covers both rights-control and access-control TPMs.

In addition, the amended act revises the provision on TPM violations, defining any act rendering access-control TPMs ineffective as infringement of TPMs, and deleting the requirement of intention to infringe. As for the circumvention of rights-control TPMs, since it leads to actual copyright infringement activities, the circumvention is subject to higher penalties. The amended act further prohibits providing services to circumvent TPMs and imposes liability against anyone who manufactures, sells, distributes, or advertises products or devices intended to circumvent TPMs.

The exceptions for TPM violations in the previous Copyright Act were considered too broad. The amended act addresses this by removing its stipulation of exceptions, instead specifying that the exceptions will be laid out in ministerial regulations to be issued later.

The Good and the Bad

Thailand’s amended Copyright Act contains several positive developments and benefits. First, it increases the length of protection for photographic works to be in line with international standards. Second, the changes to TPM provisions will strengthen enforcement options. Third, the amended act provides mechanisms for hosting ISPs and search engine ISPs to provide easy and accessible channels for reporting infringing content. This should make it easier for copyright owners to report alleged infringing content, and it may also create greater incentives to report such content and thus provide copyright owners and users with greater protection against online infringers. Also, as long as ISPs properly comply with the new procedures, they will be within safe-harbor boundaries that exempt them from liability for the alleged copyright infringement.

However, as this notice-and-takedown system follows the one provided by the United States’ Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has been in place since 1998, it may not be the most effective measure to cope with current trends in online infringement, particularly with the emergence of different types of social media platforms, online marketplaces for new types of digital content (such as NFTs) and possibly more complex metaverse platforms in the near future.

In addition, the amended act requires that before notifying an ISP of infringing content, copyright owners must take into consideration the allowable exceptions. This means that copyright owners must consider whether the alleged infringing content actually conflicts with the normal exploitation of a copyrighted work by the copyright owner and unreasonably prejudices the legitimate interests of the copyright owner, or whether it possibly falls within the scope of exceptions. It is unclear how copyright owners are to prove the fulfillment of this requirement.

We believe that the amended Copyright Act will equip copyright owners with broader and more advanced tools to tackle copyright infringement as it occurs today. The safe harbor provisions will be greatly beneficial to ISPs whose systems comply with the law. Skepticism remains, however, over how well the system will work in practice and whether these provisions will encourage ISPs to establish internal policies and systems in order to be exempted from liability. Therefore, it will be important for copyright owners to keep a close eye on developments once the amended law comes into effect.

Related Professionals

Practices

Intellectual Property

Location

RELATED INSIGHTS​ 

August 13, 2026
Modern agricultural machinery is no longer purely mechanical but instead technology dependent. Modern tractors, harvesters, and other farm equipment increasingly incorporate embedded software, electronic control units, sensors, and digital diagnostic systems. While such technologies enhance efficiency, productivity, and precision farming, they also affect the manner of equipment repair and maintenance. As a result, farmers and independent repair providers may have little practical choice but to rely on authorized dealers, even for routine maintenance and repairs. Section 36 of Thailand’s Patent Act reflects the principle that the authorized sale of a patented invention usually exhausts the exclusive right of the patent owner over the specific product. This means that upon legal sale of the patented product, it can typically be used or resold without further authorization from the patent holder. This principle is relatively straightforward when applied to traditional mechanical equipment. Ownership of a machine ordinarily carries with it the practical ability to diagnose faults, replace worn parts, and restore the equipment to working order. Modern agricultural machinery, however, increasingly depends on embedded software, proprietary diagnostic systems, firmware updates, and other digital resources that may remain under the control of the manufacturer or patent holder. This tension lies within the “right to repair” debate. In the United States, on July 8, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission and five states announced a settlement with Deere & Company resolving allegations that Deere had unlawfully restricted farmers’ and independent repair providers’ ability to repair their equipment. Under the terms of the settlement, for the next ten years, Deere must provide repair resources, including software capabilities, on terms equivalent to those provided to authorized dealers. The Deere settlement highlights that the nature of ownership is changing, but legal concepts have not kept pace. Traditional patent-law concepts, including patent exhaustion, were developed with physical products
Read More
August 10, 2026
Thailand has finalized its social media KYC (“know your customer”) rules under Notification of the Electronic Transactions Commission on Measures to Prevent Technological Crimes for Social Media Service Providers (No. 2), which was published in the Government Gazette on May 5, 2026, and will take effect on November 1, 2026. While an early draft of the notification proposed requiring social media platforms to arrange identification of every user account, the final notification is significantly more targeted, focusing on paid online advertising and advertiser identity verification. Though the regulatory initiative primarily aims to combat online fraud and technology-related crimes, it also has important consequences for intellectual property enforcement, because the verified platform records that will be generated under the new requirements can help IP rights holders to identify anonymous online infringers. Key Regulatory Mandates The notification requires social media service providers to verify the identity of advertisers before their paid advertisements are published and disseminated in Thailand through social media, regardless of whether the advertising fees come from the advertisers or third parties. Verification of an advertiser is valid for one year, after which verification would have to be performed again before the platform could publish additional paid advertisements from the advertiser. Permitted verification methods are specified under the notification. A platform may verify an advertiser by checking identity evidence and confirming the connection between the advertiser and that identity evidence, with the notification giving facial comparison against certain government-issued identity documents as an example. Alternatively, platforms may verify advertisers through a digital identity verification and authentication system with an identity-proofing assurance level not lower than the level prescribed by Thailand’s Electronic Transactions Commission. The notification further requires platforms to retain only the advertiser’s information necessary to identify the advertiser, beginning from the start of the advertising activity and for
Read More
August 6, 2026
Introduction: A Trademark Paradox in Sustainable Packaging Walk into any Thai supermarket, and the label-free water bottle is no longer a novelty. Thailand’s packaging market, valued at approximately USD 15.68 billion in 2025, is shifting toward minimalist, plastic-light designs as ESG pressures reshape how brands present their products. The country generated roughly 5.68 million tons of plastic waste in 2021, with a recycling rate of only 19 percent, and regulators are now considering rules that would allow label-free bottled water relying on embossing, laser printing, or QR codes instead of wrap-around labels. As packaging itself becomes the brand identifier, a paradox emerges: designs built to say the least often struggle hardest for protection under Thai intellectual property law. The Trademark Barrier: When Shape Is Not Enough Section 7, paragraph 2(10) of the Thai Trademark Act deems a shape distinctive only if it is not the natural form of the goods, is not necessary to achieve a technical result, and does not add value to the goods. The Department of Intellectual Property’s 2022 examination guidelines apply this test conservatively, as the following examples illustrate. A plain water bottle relying on subtle contours to signal its brand is typically read as just another bottle, not a source identifier. Acquired distinctiveness offers a theoretical escape route, but it demands extensive evidence of sales, advertising, and consumer recognition—an especially heavy burden for new entrants whose minimalist packaging has not yet achieved market prominence. The result is a structural bias against precisely the design innovation that sustainability goals are meant to encourage. Design Patents: A Partial, Imperfect Substitute Design patent protection, covering a product’s shape, configuration, or ornamentation, appears to offer an alternative route. In practice, it is constrained by the same forces driving the minimalist trend. Because many brands converge on similar solutions—clear
Read More
August 4, 2026
Intellectual property (IP) protection sometimes hinges on fame and recognition. However, this alone will not always be sufficient to overcome an IP dispute when it involves contractual obligations or registered rights. Below are five cases from around the world that tackle some of the basic issues in IP registration, ownership, commercialization, and enforcement. 1. USA: Taylor Swift Trademark Application Refused Taylor Swift recently filed a trademark application to register “The Life of a Showgirl,” which is the title of her 12th studio album. When examining a trademark application, the examiner considers various factors before deciding whether it should be registered. One of these factors is whether there is a likelihood of confusion (i.e., would a regular consumer mistake the origin of the trademark). In Taylor Swift’s case, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) decided that that there would be a risk of confusion. This decision was based on the existing registered trademark, “Confessions of a Showgirl,” owned by Maren Wade, which was registered in 2015. The USPTO refused Taylor Swift’s application based on the shared key distinctive element “of a showgirl,” the lack of sufficient distinguishing terms, the marks being used in overlapping markets (entertainment and performances), and because consumers may assume a common commercial source. Maren Wade then filed a lawsuit in California against Taylor Swift and her affiliated companies, arguing that Taylor Swfit’s branding is confusingly similar in structure, wording, and overall commercial impression to her registered mark. She is also drawing on the USPTO’s refusal of Taylor Swift’s application to support her argument of a likelihood of confusion. A judgment has not yet been reached in this case, but it serves as an important reminder of the importance of satisfying the essential elements required for IP registration. 2. Australia: Katy Perry v. Katie Perry In
Read More