It may be recalled that a few years ago the Thai government fell as a result of an attempt to enact a modern copyright law. Following significant prodding by the United States (Thailand was on the priority watch list for action under Special 301 of the Tariff Act for several years) a new law has now been passed. Significant changes from the previous law include the following:

The new law has, however, been criticized by some as providing for too wide a range of exceptions on the ground of alleged fair use. Time will tell whether these criticisms are justified. On their face the provisions do not seem unreasonable since they are confined to acts that "are not done for the purposes of profit" and which "neither interfere with the copyright owner obtaining benefits [from the copyright work] nor cause the owner to suffer a greater adverse effect than would be reasonably expected". Two specific situations in which copying is permitted are in adapting a computer program "when it is necessary for use," for the benefit of the owner of a computer program and making copies of a copyrighted work "to save it for use as a reference or for research for the benefit of the public."