Creative economy in Thailand sounds like an oxymoron

EXECUTIVE TALK
Creative economy needs protection

Published on March 3, 2011 The Nation

"Innovation is key to the golden age." This is how the media recently summed up a well-received and thoughtful speech by Bank of Thailand Governor Prasarn Trairatvorakul, in which he urged the country to focus on innovation as a key to future competiveness.

His comments were yet another sign of growing support for invention in Thailand. On a national level, we are being encouraged to take part in a creative economy. We are being told that this will help Thailand to out-innovate and out-create our country's strongest competitors.

The government is also backing up this effort to build a creative economy with financial support. Deputy Commerce Minister Alongkorn Ponlaboot recently announced a Bt7-billion investment in building Thailand's creative economy this year.

For aspiring entrepreneurs, the creative economy is much more than a political platform. It is - as one software innovator described it - a big step in the right direction that needs to be followed up by enforcement of intellectual-property rights created by the campaign.

"Encouraging the country to innovate is so important," says Thai Software Enterprises' managing director Somporn Maneeratanakul. "But protecting these innovations is equally important. Without good protection for intellectual property, what incentive is there to innovate? Can a creative economy excel without strong protection for the owners of innovations? In my experience, the answer is no."

Consider Somporn's situation. In 1997, he took a financial risk and invested in the copyrights to locally made software. He hired a team of programmers and researchers, established a sales team and began the process of building his business. Yet, 14 years later, Somporn still faces a software-piracy rate of 75 per cent of his product offering.

"With lower levels of software piracy," he says "we would have the resources to create and innovate at much higher levels. We would create more jobs, more wealth, more new ideas. But as it stands, we spend a lot of time and energy protecting our intellectual property."

This is not to take anything away from the strategy behind the government's creative-economy plan. It is, in principal, a sound initiative and our government leaders should be applauded for their focus on innovation and invention.

But for movements such as this to truly take root and develop into viable, wealth-producing, job-creating industries, Thailand must better focus on protecting the intellectual capital created by motivated entrepreneurs.

Given all that Thailand's innovators and creators sacrifice, the least we can do is to protect their innovations and respect their intellectual-property rights.

I fully agree that innovation is the key to the golden age. And I am optimistic about the potential for a creative economy. Thailand clearly has huge potential as a place to be creative. But let's also remember that protection of intellectual-property rights is a critical part of the equation. Without good protection for intellectual property, the golden age will remain something we can only hope to achieve.



Varunee Ratchatapattanakul is a consultant with the Business Software Alliance. She is an attorney specialising in intellectual-property rights.