Legal Measures for Textbook Copyright Protection

Abstract

The current situation has adopted modern technology to help produce, copy and distribute various works more conveniently and quickly. At the same time, non-copyrighters use those technologies to reproduce and distribute copyrighted works as well. Especially in the case of students or professors who have brought textbooks to make copies of documents by themselves or taken them to a copy shop to do so for use in teaching, which is a reproduction of copyrighted work. Thus, this research aims 1. to study the background, concepts, theories, laws, and measures related to textbook copyright protection; 2. to comparatively study the exemption of textbook copyright infringement; and 3. to purpose the appropriate measures for textbook copyright protection. This current study employed a qualitative research method in which secondary data were collected through the related document from various sources both from Thai and foreign countries.  According to this research, it is found that 1) textbook copyright protection under the Copyright Act, B.E. 2537 is automatically activated. No registration is required; 2) in terms of copyright infringement exemption, there are loosely stated principles with no precise measure; and 3) since the current enforced measures for textbook copyright protection have no specified proportion or volume of creative work for Fair Use, therefore the researcher would suggest that the Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) issue ministerial regulations or notification of the ministry outline the principles relating to proportion or volume of creative work for Fair Use. In addition, higher educational institutions should issue regulations or notifications requiring faculties as textbook authors to register to verify the ownership of the copyright and be eligible for further assistance from the institution.