The amended copyright law will provide better protection to owners of copyrights by empowering them to notify internet service providers to “take down” their works such as music, films, books from websites without going through the court.

Ms Nusara Kanchanakul, deputy director-general of the Department of Intellectual Property Rights, said Monday the amended copyright act had already been approved by Commerce Minister Sonthirat Sonthijirawong and is expected to be sent to the Cabinet for approval soon.

She said that the copyrights law has been amended in three main areas:  the responsibility of the ISP in suspending alleged copyrights violations on the internet through “notice and takedown”; improvement of provisions regarding technological violations and memberships in World Copyrights Treaty.

The essence of the amendment is that in case a copyrights owner discovers that there is a violation of his/her copyrighted work on the internet such as music, film or book, he/she could notify the ISP of the alleged transgression to “take down” such work from the website.

However, the amended law also allows the person posting the work in question on the internet to challenge the claim and ask the ISP to restore the work on the internet if he/she insists that the work belongs to him/her.  Then the case will be settled in court.