Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing illegal streaming business and let me just get into why I thought of making this, because this actually came from reading an article on sort of a slightly different topic than what the thrust of this video is going to be about. So let's just jump in here. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Subscribers to Illegal streaming services warned after raids. "Thailand's Department of Special Investigation Police have warned streaming users in Thailand that they risk punishment if downloading pirated movies or sports events including premium football." 

So I did another video contemporaneously with this one. I made one recently as well citing another article. I think Mr. Barry Kenyon down at Pattaya Mail, wrote this: tip of the hat to you sir, always enjoy your work. That said, this is about streaming in terms of like streaming boxes on TV and illegal copyright. Quoting further: "Although imprisonment is a possibility for investors and workers in the illegal streaming business, ordinary viewers in Thailand paying a subscription as low as $10 monthly can be fined up to US$5,000." What I thought of thinking of when I was reading this video was just the notion of “illegal streaming”, that that could be two different things. One is the notion of these boxes that aren't properly registered and that don't have the proper authorization to purvey this intellectual property and in so doing, they are committing a crime. And as you will see in this article, and I urge those who are watching this video go check out that article. The police now seem to be looking increasingly at end consumers of this product. And when I saw that, I said "wow", first of all I have to ask if that is the best allocation of resources for the Thai Police at the moment, but the second thing that came to my mind was, wow if they are going after that, then they could also seriously be looking at streaming of another type and that's the type of streaming that we see on YouTube as well as other platforms across the internet that involve individuals who are using their phones, using their computers. to stream content and make money here in Thailand. And as I have discussed in other videos, that can be a real problem from a work authorization standpoint.

As we have discussed in other videos at length, the nebulous nature, well they muddied the waters very much with regard to work authorization in Thailand with the inception of the LTR Visa and the DTV Visa especially the DTV visa has proven problematic, but the same I think conclusion from the Ministry of Interior recently that stipulated that nothing that "impinges upon the Thai economy" can be done by a foreigner without an overt Work Permit, without an actual Work Permit in Thailand which is very different than unfortunately this nebulous pseudo "we will look the other way work authorization" but it's not work authorization, it's really an exemption, basically we are looking the other way as long as you are not working in Thailand type of thing that came about with again the inception of the DTV. I've talked about this at length. The prior government especially when Ms. Paetongtarn Shinawatra was trying to come into office, they basically just created this DTV, it was really not consulted; no consensus was garnered by internal Immigration nor the Labour Ministry from what I can gather regarding that type of Visa, it was purely the brainchild of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that then just sort of foisted it on the internal apparatus here in Thailand and the result has been really not particularly great outcomes for foreigners because they have a certain set of expectations regarding what they can and cannot do on this visa, and as we have discussed in other videos, it's clearly not work authorized and as evidenced by the fact they won't even open bank accounts and they have actually affirmatively closed bank accounts of DTV holders because they are not supposed to be working in Thailand. 

The reason I bring this up is I still think and I know people get sort of mad at me over this, but I'm doing it purely because I worry about the foreigners who could misconstrue and not really understand the nebulous nature of the field if you will or of the zone that they are in with regard to this that yeah you're not overtly work authorized, and if you are doing things like screaming and you don't have proper work authorization in Thailand, you're actually time stamping and you are physically present in Thailand, you are actually time stamping your illegal activity. So if you ever get scrutinized, you can have a really serious problem. And again I don't bring this up for any other reason that I'm trying to warn people that you could be causing yourself a problem, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but down the road in a situation that you don't really want to put yourself in where you are being scrutinized possibly by the likes of Department of Special Investigation as we have already mentioned, or just standard Thai Police here in Thailand as a result of something that one has done and posted on the internet.

So it's something to think about with regard to coming to Thailand. You know what work is. We all know what work is and trying to like to operate in this gray area while at the same time filming oneself and putting it out there on the internet especially in real time via sort of a streaming type platform, that can be very problematic here in the Kingdom of Thailand.