The Department of Intellectual Property has partnered with YouTube and relevant agencies to urgently resolve AI-driven bans on "Thai traditional music" clips whose copyrights have expired, planning to establish a public domain database and improve rights verification accuracy.
Mrs. Oramon Supthaweetham, Director-General of the Department of Intellectual Property. She revealed the approach to solving copyright claims on digital platforms for Thai traditional music whose protection period has ended and entered the public domain. On 11 Aug 2026 GMT+7, the department held discussions with stakeholders including YouTube, the Ministry of Culture, the Music Association of Thailand under Royal Patronage, experts on Thai traditional music, Thai music conservation agencies, and parties claiming rights over Thai traditional music.
From the discussions, the meeting agreed on four key measures to prevent false copyright claims inconsistent with facts, consisting of:
Enhancing the automatic rights verification system. Studying technical measures to enable the system to correctly identify works that are public domain, reducing erroneous rights claims.
Adopting international data standards. Establishing codes and data structures for music works and sound recordings whose protection has expired to a unified standard for easier status verification on digital platforms.
Creating a Thai traditional music database. Building a reliable reference source compiling Thai traditional music that has become public domain.
Developing dispute resolution mechanisms. Creating a system to manage overlapping rights claims on Thai music works, with the department acting as a central coordinator for initial mediation.
The department addressed this issue because it found that expired Thai traditional music that has entered the public domain is performed or newly recorded and published online. However, automatic rights verification systems like YouTube's Content ID, which use AI to compare and detect similarities between video content and registered works to prevent copyright infringement, mistakenly identify these as infringements and block their publication. This also happens when works are originally created or properly licensed but still flagged incorrectly. Therefore, this problem needs resolution to prevent disputes or false copyright claims.
However, if such issues occur, the department advises those unfairly claimed to use YouTube’s dispute system to assert their rights by providing evidence such as original files with creation details, copyright registration certificates issued by the department, proof of first publication, or other documents demonstrating ownership or authorized use. If the dispute is rejected, the claimant can appeal through the platform.
According to the Copyright Act B.E. 2537 (1994) and its amendments, data from the Department of Intellectual Property indicates that copyright protection periods are as follows:
Musical compositions (lyrics/melody). Protected throughout the creator's lifetime plus 50 years after their death.
Sound recordings. Protected for 50 years from creation or 50 years from first publication.
After these periods expire, the works become "public domain". The public can perform, adapt, or modify these works into their own versions without permission or paying royalties. However, newly created adaptations may be protected as derivative works but do not grant exclusive rights over the original public domain compositions.
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