'Copyright agents' face arrest warrants for krathong floats 'sting'Orn, the 15-year-old girl was arrested on Nov 1 for making krathong floats featuring cartoon characters, makes more baskets with coloured bread for Monday's festival in Nakhon Ratchasima province. (Photo by Prasit Tangprasert)Police will seek arrest warrants for "copyright agents" who ordered krathong floats adorned with copyrighted cartoon characters from a 15-year-old girl, and then had her arrested and fined for copyright infringement. Police were expanding the investigation after more than 40 vendors filed complaints against the same agents, alleging they also sought police action against them in a copyright "sting" to extort fines. TAC Consumer Plc, the representative of Japanese copyright holder San-X cartoon, denied it had assigned anyone to work with police in copyright sting operations. Police have also affirmed that the characters on the floats did not really resemble the copyright cartoon characters, so no violation occurred.

Source: Bangkok Post November 11, 2019 11:00 UTC