Using Photos, Articles and Music From the Web on a Company Site: Where Thai Copyright Law Bites

A mid-sized company's marketing team has a campaign post due tomorrow. The images came from a Google search, the product write-up is condensed from a news site, the short clip runs over a trending song, and there is a screenshot of a review from another page. Every item is credited at the end of the post, so the team assumes it is covered.

Thailand's Copyright Act B.E. 2537 (1994) sees it differently. A credit is a condition of some exceptions, not a substitute for permission. And if one of the images once carried a watermark that someone removed, the company may have committed a second, separate offence without realising it.

This article works through what is protected and what is not, what counts as infringement, how far the exceptions really stretch for a business, why removing a watermark matters, and where the Computer-Related Crime Act genuinely comes in. It ends with a do and don't table you can hand straight to your content team.

Is an image found online protected if the owner never registered it?

Yes. Copyright does not depend on registration. Section 8 makes the author the owner of copyright in the work they create. The conditions in that section concern nationality, residence and where the work was first published; none of them requires registration.

The works protected under Section 6 cover almost everything a content team reaches for: literary, artistic, musical, audiovisual, cinematographic, sound recording and broadcasting works, in whatever mode or form of expression. The definition of artistic work in Section 4 lists photographic works expressly, "whether or not the work in (1) to (7) has an artistic value".

In practice, a plain product shot taken by an online shop, a blog illustration or a holiday photo someone posted all have owners, even without a © symbol and even if the owner never said "do not use". Under Section 19 protection generally lasts for the author's life plus 50 years after death.

What is not protected, and free to use?

Less than most people think. Section 7 excludes five groups. The ones a business content team uses most are news of the day and facts that are mere information, and legislation and official documents.

What is unprotected is the fact, not the news article. The journalist's wording, structure and photographs are still someone's work. You can retell the facts in your own words; you cannot lift paragraphs or pictures from the story.

Section 6 paragraph two helps too: copyright protects expression, not ideas.

If you like a competitor's concept, say, shooting products against a background matching their ingredients, you can shoot your own photos on that idea. What you cannot do is use or adapt the significant part of their photographs.

What counts as copyright infringement?

Reproduction, adaptation or communication to the public without permission. Downloading an image and uploading it to the company website does both reproduction and communication to the public in one move.

The definition of "reproduction" in Section 4 includes copying by any method, imitation and image recording of the significant part, in whole or in part. Cropping an image in half or laying a filter over it does not take you outside reproduction or adaptation if what remains is still the significant part of the original.

Music under a clip on the company page

A clip with a song touches at least two works: the musical work (melody and lyrics) and the sound recording. Section 28 treats reproduction, adaptation or communication to the public of a sound recording without permission as infringement, whether of the sound or the images. A platform's built-in music library does not mean every track may be used in an advertising post; check that platform's own licence terms.

Screenshots of other websites or pages

A screenshot records everything on that screen. If the screen shows someone else's photo, article or graphics, the screenshot reproduces those works. Using it needs an exception to rely on, like any other use, which is the next question.

How far does Thailand's fair use exception go for a business?

It exists, but it is narrower than marketers tend to assume. Section 32 paragraph one sets the two overarching conditions every exception must meet.

Ask the blunt question: does the photographer or image library normally earn money from this image by licensing it to businesses? If so, a company using it free on its own sales page will struggle to show there is no conflict with the owner's normal exploitation.

Section 32 paragraph two then lists eight specific cases. Few of them fit a business.

• (1) Research or study must not be for profit, so company marketing rarely qualifies.
• (2) Personal or family use does not cover posting on behalf of a company.
• (3) Comment, criticism or introduction of the work with an acknowledgement of ownership, for example a book review showing the cover and naming the owner.
• (4) News reporting through mass media with an acknowledgement of ownership; a company's sales page is not, by its nature, mass media.
• (6) to (8) Teaching and examinations must not be for profit, so they do not map neatly onto commercial training.

The exception businesses can use most often is Section 33, quoting a part of a work, which stacks three conditions.

The three conditions are: a reasonable part, an acknowledgement of ownership, and compliance with Section 32 paragraph one. Quoting two or three sentences from a research report with the source named comes close to Section 33. Copying a whole article with a link at the bottom, or using a full image with a credit, is not "in part" to begin with, so the credit cannot save it.

Why is removing a watermark or the photographer's name an offence?

Because it is a separate infringement, distinct from copyright infringement itself. Since the 2015 amendment, the Copyright Act has had Chapter 2/1 on rights management information and technological measures, starting from the definition in Section 4.

A watermark naming the photographer, a copyright line under an image, or author and licence data embedded in an image file can fit this definition, because it identifies the author or owner and is attached to or appears with the work. Section 53/1 then deals with removing or changing it.

Section 53/2 reaches people who did not remove the information themselves but know it was removed and then communicate the work to the public. If an outside designer sends over an image with the watermark stripped and the team knows it used to carry one, posting it can fall within this section.

Under Section 70/1 the penalty is a fine of up to 100,000 baht, or, for commercial purposes, up to 2 years' imprisonment, a fine of up to 400,000 baht, or both. The same section covers rendering ineffective a technological measure used to control access under Section 53/4, such as getting around the controls an image library uses to stop high-resolution downloads.

What happens if the owner comes after you?

There are civil and criminal consequences, and the two can run side by side.

• Damages set by the court according to the gravity of the injury, including lost benefits and enforcement costs, under Section 64 paragraph one.
• An injunction ordering you to stop, where there is explicit evidence, without prejudice to damages, under Section 65.
• Criminal penalties for infringement under Sections 27 to 30: a fine of 20,000 to 200,000 baht, or, for commercial purposes, 6 months to 4 years' imprisonment or a fine of 100,000 to 800,000 baht, or both, under Section 69.
• Half the fine goes to the owner: one half of a fine paid under a judgment is paid to the copyright owner, who can still sue for civil damages above that amount, under Section 76.
• Limitation: an action must be filed within 3 years of the owner learning of the infringement and the infringer, and no later than 10 years from the infringement, under Section 63.
• Compoundable: offences under the Act are compoundable offences under Section 66.

Section 64 paragraph two speaks directly to online content, because a post on a website or social page is, by nature, widely accessible to the public. If the team knew the image had an owner and used it anyway, the exposure to additional damages rises accordingly.

When does the Computer-Related Crime Act come into it?

Not for ordinary use of copyrighted images; copyright infringement is governed mainly by the Copyright Act. There are two points where the Computer-Related Crime Act B.E. 2550 (2007) genuinely applies.

The first is doctored images of real people. If the team makes a meme or comparison ad by editing a real person's face and posts it publicly in a way likely to damage their reputation or humiliate them, Section 16 carries imprisonment and a fine.

Section 16 paragraph three exempts good-faith fair comment, and paragraph four makes the offence compoundable. This offence does not turn on who owns the copyright in the image; a company can commit it even with a photo it took itself.

The second is Section 20(3), under which a competent official, with the Minister's approval, can petition a court to block or delete computer data that constitutes a criminal offence under intellectual property law, at the request of the officer under that law or an inquiry official. This is a state mechanism, not a channel the rights owner uses directly.

Do and don't table for content teams

One step you can take today: have the content team keep a source file for every image and track, recording who shot or wrote it, how the rights were obtained and until when. When an owner gets in touch, that file is your first line of evidence. For work made for the company by employees or freelancers, ownership turns on Sections 9 and 10; see the employee copyright guide and Register your trademark before you launch.

Who stands behind this guide?

Written by the AIPDPA legal team · Content owner: Phuwara Krobtaku, Attorney-at-law · Thai Barrister-at-Law · technology & intellectual property counsel

Lawyer's licence no. 477/2558 · Thai Barrister-at-Law · LL.M. in Intellectual Property & IT Law (Gold Medal)