[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Without Laws, There Are No Rights
[1]SIDEBAR
[2][LINK]
No End In Sight To Thai Internet Regulation
****No End In Sight To Thai Internet Regulation 11/28/97
BANGKOK, THAILAND, 1997 NOV 28 (NB) -- By Sasiwimon Boonruang,
Bangkok Post. Finding a consensus on how the Internet should be
regulated in Thailand is proving to be a difficult task,
experts say.
Attorney General Office Prosecutor Shinnawat Thongpakdee said
the law defines and protects human rights and duties and
inevitably involves itself with human behavior. As the Internet
is a phenomenon related with human behavior as well, it would
"unavoidably" be involved with the law as well.
There are several "rights" involved with Internet information:
the right to control access to information, right of
information use, right of copying information, and the right to
publicize information. These rights cannot be separated, he
said.
The rights come from several laws - "without laws, there are no
rights," the prosecutor said.
[And a BIG, HEARTY RASPBERRY to this CLUELESS MORON!]
In the Internet world, the producers of information own the
copyright to their work, and consequently, any law regarding
the Internet should also go hand in hand with copyright laws.
There is no solution at the moment as to whether there should
be compulsory laws regarding the Internet because it's
difficult to use legal means to enforce such laws, and they
would also vary greatly from one country to the next.
One practical approach would be drawing up of a worldwide
conventional agreement regarding Internet regulation, allowing
each country to sign off of their own choosing.
At the very least, he said, we should accumulate information
concerning the Internet in order to consider what should be
allowed or prohibited - this information would be useful in the
future.
Mr Shinnawat added that Internet technology is very new for the
legal sector and other societies, and it was difficult to make
any conclusions in legal term about the Internet at the moment.
He said the Internet provided the opportunity for all - rich
and poor alike - to access and make use of information, even
though the reality would be that the gap between rich and poor
would grow even wider.
According to Internet Thailand Service Center (ITSC) President
Trin Tantsetthi, infringement on the Internet has increased
greatly during the last year, and laws regarding the Internet
would be very hard to enforce.
For example, there were already 30,000 documents on the
Internet in Thailand already.
Copyright infringements on the works of others was wrong in
both moral and legal terms, he said, but using legal means to
deal with it would prove difficult. Social pressures might be
an alternative.
Wanchai Kanti, of Thammasat University, said people should have
freedom of speech and freedom to express opinions, and that the
flow of information "should not be closed", especially to
academic institutes. There should not be laws to control
Internet content, although opinions expressed should be done in
a responsible manner.
Reported By Newsbytes News Network: [3]http://www.newsbytes.com
(19971128)
[4]Copyright �Newsbytes News Network. All rightsreserved. For more
Newsbytes see http://www.newsbytes.com.
[5]Home | [6]Daily | [7]Weekly | [8]Publishers | [9]Search
References
1. http://www.newsbytes.com/menus/navbar.map
2. http://ad.preferences.com/click.ng;spacedesc=CliqTech_Newsbytes_468x60_CTGeneral_Any
3. http://www.newsbytes.com/
4. http://www.nbnn.com/copyrght.html
5. http://www.nbnn.com/home.html
6. http://www.nbnn.com/news/s_daily.html
7. http://www.nbnn.com/news/s_week.html
8. http://www.nbnn.com/publishers/publi_1.html
9. http://www.nbnn.com/html_p/search.html