Wrangling over Copyright Protection Treaty: Germany Speaks Out against Global Internet Ban for Pirates

By Konrad Lischka (Spiegel Online, 03/03/2010)

Recent leaks suggest the thirty-nine countries negotiating an international copyright protection treaty could require Internet service providers to ban repeat piracy offenders from using the Web. The German government, however, has now voiced its opposition to the proposal, which has been heavily criticized by civil rights activists.

For more information, and links to related articles, please see http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,681498,00.html

8th Bangkok International Book Fair & 38th National Book Fair 2010

Silkworm Books, along with Mekong Press and Paragon Asia, will be at the 8th International Book Fair and the 38th National Book Fair, from March 26 to April 6, 2010, at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in Bangkok. We’ll be in the Plenary Hall, H-18, all day, every day—from 10:00 in the morning till 9:00 at night—so please stop by the stand for a chat, and have a good look through our current range. For more information about the event, where it’s being held, and how to get there, see the websites for the Bangkok International Book Fair and the Queen Siritkit National Convention Center.

Siam Society Fire

Long-time residents of not only Bangkok but all Thailand have been shocked by the news of the fire in the early hours of Friday which gutted the office building, bookshop and another shop in the Siam Society grounds and severely damaged the remaining premises, according to reports received. It is not yet known for certain what caused the fire.

The Siam Society, Under Royal Patronage, was founded in 1904 and was the earliest academic society of its kind in the country. Its first meeting was held in the Oriental Hotel and early on it received royal support for its activities; Prince Damrong, “the father of Thai history”, was one of its founding members; past presidents include well-known scholars like H.H. Prince Dhani Nivat, H.R.H. Prince Wan Waithayakon, and H.S.H. Prince Subhadradis Diskul.

At first, meetings were held in members’ homes, but then in the early 1930s the Society received a grant of three rai of land on Soi Asoke from the generous businessman A.E. Nana and was able to build the lecture hall, which was opened in February 1933 and still stands. The adjacent library cum office building cum research centre, in part built with Danish contributions, came later, and was formally opened in the presence of Their Majesties the King and Queen of Thailand, Her Majesty Queen Rambai Barni, and Their Majesties King Frederick IX and Queen Ingrid of Denmark on 13 January 1962. Subsequent buildings added to the compound include the northern style Kamthieng House, the Ayutthaya period Saengarun House, and the main Chalerm Prakiat building which currently holds the much expanded library.

The Society arranges a series of lectures and study tours both inside and outside the country, and since its foundation has established its well-known Journal which appears annually and maintains the highest standards of scholarship. It also publishes a regular Natural History Bulletin, and many academic works unlikely to be supported by commercial publishers, like its most recent volume, by the late Roxanna Brown, on shipwreck ceramics.

The Society is run by its members through an elected Council, and has a staff of fourteen full-time persons. The present president, Khun Athueck Asvanund, has the unenviable task of overseeing the reestablishment of the Society’s damaged buildings and compound. As a meeting point between East and West, the Society’s home has an unrivalled history and role still to perform. This is the first serious setback in its long history, but which, we all hope, will be rapidly overcome.

—Michael Smithies

Silkworm Books wins Bangkok Post Internet Site of the Week

From the Bangkok Post, Wednesday, June 17, 2009

"If you're looking for high quality information on Southeast Asia, Thailand in particular, you're looking for Silkworm Books. They publish some of the most informative, well-researched stuff around, mostly non-fiction but also a little bit of fiction as well (and not the "Adventures with Bargirls" type fiction that most other publishers seem to favour). If it's a Silkworm Book, you can be sure that the author has done their homework.

At the website, you can learn more about the numerous titles they have published over the years, and you can even order books or find out where Silkworm Books can be purchased.

Some of their new titles include Thai Forestry: A Critical History by Ann Danaiya Usher; The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia, second edition, by Donald K. Swearer; The Living Mekong, photography by Joe Garrison, text by Delia Paul; The Brightened Mind by Antoinette van de Water and Liesbeth Sluiter; and History of the Shan State: From Its Origins to 1962 by Sai Aung Tun.

There are books on Buddhism, China, Cambodia, Islam and Southeast Asia, North Thailand, Vietnam. There are also a variety of field guides. If it happened in the region and it's important, Silkworm Books probably has a title on it.

You can also look to their website for submission information, if you have a manuscript that's appropriate. Members of the press can also contact Silkworm for review copies of their books.

Silkworm Books is a partner of the Mekong Press.

See their site at www.silkwormbooks.com.

The pathfinder

David Wyatt opened new vistas on Thai history. Four who knew him share their personal memories and assess the legacy of a pioneer in Siamese cultural studies

Seldom can an outsider have done so much to further the understanding of another country’s history, especially an outsider whose home was half a world away. But from his unparalleled study, “Thailand: A Short History”, through to his last book unravelling the mysteries of Thai murals, Professor David Wyatt did just that, and, according to many Thai historians, a whole lot more. Wyatt’s work helped clarify our view of Thailand’s past, while exuding a passion for Thai culture every step of the way.

Four Thai insiders gave The Nation their thoughts on the tremendous impact of this man from afar, and the legacy contained in more than 60 books that he left behind when he passed away two weeks ago. Wyatt, 69, died of emphysema and congestive heart failure in a retirement home in Ithaca, New York. He is survived by his wife, Alene, three sons, Douglas, Andrew and James, and five grandchildren.

Dr Charnvit Kasetsiri
Founder of Southeast
Asian Studies Programme Thammasat University

David Wyatt wasn’t just a “professor”, he was a teacher for us all, and his name and work will survive for as long as Thais feel the urge to learn about their past.

Ajarn Wyatt left us with more than 100 writings but his famous opus, “Thailand: A Short History”, has become the definitive introduction to Thai history. It was a leap forward from W A R Wood’s book, “A History of Siam”, written 56 years earlier, and it was another 23 years before Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit attempted a similar overview with “A History of Thailand” in 2005.

Among his important contributions to historical knowledge were his doctoral dissertation on King Rama V, eventually published by Yale University Press as “The Politics of Reform in Thailand” in 1969, and his paper “Family Politics in Thailand” dealing with the Bunnag dynasty. This writer can still remember discovering Thai history as a student in America, where Ajarn Wyatt’s tutorials brought to life the conflicts, trials and trepidations of the Rama V period. The lecture-room portrait of a young and vigorous King Chulalongkorn inflamed his students’ interest so much that the professor was persuaded to continue the story at a local watering hole called Johnny’s Big Red.

Wyatt’s last contribution to the study of Thai history was as the editor of “The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya”, with Richard D Cushman as translator.
Towards the end of his life, this writer received a request for a letter from Wyatt’s wife, Alene. The following is an extract of the letter she read out to him on November 13.

Just to say “Hi” from Bangkok (under strange and amazing military rule).
I am teaching modern Thai politics and history at Chula and Thammasat... using your long “Thailand: A Short History”, as usual.
Best wishes my dear productive Ajarn,

Charnvit

PS: Our Ayutthaya has been partly underwater for some months now.

David left us on November 14.
He can’t have imagined how much Thailand, his second home, has changed in the past few months. Ajarn Wyatt took pains to remind us of the “Thai virtues” that the Father of Thai history, Prince Damrong, explained as love of independence, tolerance, and the power of assimilation. Just how relevant these virtues remain is being tested by recent historical events.

Chiranan Pitpreecha 1989 SeaWrite award winner

O Captain! My Captain! Rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up – for you the flag is flung – for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths – for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning ...

I rendered this poem by Walt Whitman in Thai ten years ago, but I learn the true meaning of it with the departure of my Captain – David K Wyatt.
For four decades, the man we remember as “Ajarn Wai-aat” (“Mighty Age” – his own Thai translation for his surname) has contributed enormously to Thai studies in the wider world.

Those who are familiar with Wyatt’s early works may view him as an expert on Thai dynastic histories, but in fact, his knowledge took in everything from the history of Southeast Asia’s mainland to local histories and social issues in the region’s countries.
For him, the “historical evidence” had to encompass more than documents in archives, which couldn’t provide an insight into the culture of the largely illiterate masses. He proposed that temple murals were a key to the mindset of people in the past. His two recent books “Siam in Mind” (2002) and “Reading Thai Murals” (2004) may read like anecdotes from a lifetime spent in the field of Thai research, but they have already set an unprecedented course for study outside the mainstream. As to my personal memories, I was honoured to have been both his student and part of his “extended family”. When I returned to Cornell in 2002 to continue my dissertation, “The Three Horizons: Politics in Sipsong Chuthai Borderlands 1880-1910”, Wyatt and his wife Alene invited me to stay with them for almost a year. Inside those four walls I learned that yam woon-sen (glass noodle salad) formed the basis of his love for Thai food. Normally, Alene took over duties as chef, but occasionally he would do the honours with his speciality, spring rolls. At home, he was wise and witty, encouraging me to exercise my brain with funny words and idioms in English and Thai. My “Ithaca Daddy” also guided me through difficulties, both academic and personal, while Alene showed me the exceptional inner strength and heart of a woman. This Captain’s pioneer spirit has landed here, and will continue to inspire Thai students to devote their intellect and passion to their homeland.

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

Dr Sunait Chutintaranond
Director of Thai and Southeast Asian
Studies Centre,
Chulalongkorn University

It is not too much to say that Southeast Asia’s academic circle has lost a great linguist. David K Wyatt was one of the few Western academics able to translate ancient documents into English for the international audience. His translations, “Crystal Sands: The Chronicles of Nagara Sri Dharmaraja” (1975) and “Local Legends of Chiang Mai” published by Suriwongse Book Centre (2000), were testaments to his linguistic genius. His translation of the “Kong Bong Chronicle” that details the loss of the capital in BE2310 deserves to be much more widely known. Students who worked closely with him realised he was also an expert in the Lao and Burmese languages. Wyatt laboured all his professional life to foster a new generation of academics and raise the study of Thai history to an international standard. In this regard, he was a master in the grand tradition, sowing seeds of wisdom in Thailand. Wyatt was tutor for my master’s and doctorate degrees at Cornell University, and as I look back I can’t help but appreciate the burden that he carried on his shoulders. Building up people is more difficult and time consuming than building a body of academic research. As a teacher, I now see how perceptive Wyatt was – he could read his students’ minds like his own palm, encouraging those characteristics that would serve them in good stead. He preferred to stimulate their native creativity rather than have them slavishly imitate their teacher. The result was that some even went against his works. But he respected this academic freedom, realising that any development of ideas took time – even monitoring his students’ growth and development from afar. To many, Wyatt’s reputation is cemented as a great historian, linguist and international pioneer in Thai history. But for his students, he will remain the master who worked tirelessly to sow seeds of wisdom for the study of Thai and Southeast Asian history.

Trasvin Jittidecharak
Founder and publisher of
Silkworm Books and Mekong Press

Onward to glory I go

My publisher-author relationship with David Wyatt began in 1991, when Silkworm published his “Thailand: A Short History”. After that, we saw each other every time Wyatt visited Chiang Mai. I have no idea when and how we became so close. For my part, I thought this Ajarn was unique. He knew many languages, including Tua Mueang, a northern Thai script. He knew books, computers, typefaces and fonts. He liked maps. I remember him drawing up King Mae Ku’s trip for the Chiang Mai Chronicle. He said, “Ha! Mae Ku went round in a circle! A good map explains things better than a thousand words.” He was also open to criticism. Often he would smile and retort, “Well, I’m waiting to read a better one than mine.” At one time, he was selecting student’s dissertations to go on my list for publication. I was touched – not just because he wanted to help me, but also because he always remembered and supported his former students in their academic careers. It is no overstatement to say that Wyatt’s bond with Thailand went far beyond words.
Long ago he gently pushed me to reissue “The History of the Malay Kingdom of Patani” by Ibrahim Syukri. The original book was written in Jawi, and although the authorities banned the last chapter of the Thai edition, they weren’t so concerned about the English version. Later I was able to publish the full text in Thai. Wyatt always wanted us Thais to be able to access the information we deserve to know. Unlike his students and colleagues, I got to know Wyatt better in his twilight years. If any of you enjoy the sunset as I do, you will understand how I felt – Wyatt gave me lessons one could never learn in a classroom. He showed me the virtues and qualities of a true scholar – humility, discipline, openness, an eager-ness to learn from the learned and a willingness to guide the younger generation. I thought we would lose Wyatt after in 1999. It was a miracle that he survived his operations then and was able to revisit Thailand several times. In recent times we talked more about our great love of music. Wyatt once performed on stage in “Man of La Mancha”, playing none other than Don Quixote. It seems fitting to me, then, to round off these fond memories with a few verses from the musical:

Don Quixote:
I am I, Don Quixote, the Lord of la Mancha,
My destiny calls and I go,
And the wild winds of fortune
Will carry me onward,
Oh, whithersoever they blow
Onward to glory I go

Copyright 2005 Nation Multimedia Group
44 Moo 10 Bang Na-Trat KM 4.5, Bang Na district, Bangkok 10260 Thailand
Tel 66-2-325-5555, 66-2-317-0420 and 66-2-316-5900 ; Fax 66-2-317-2071

The founder of Silkworm Books is determined to bring quality English works to the Thai market -and she's succeeding

Story by KRITTIYA WONGTAVAVIMARN, Photos by YINGYONG UN-ANONGRAK

Trasvin Jittidecharak says publishing books is like bringing up children -it's no easy task. "It's not just delivering the baby and then full stop. It's also about nurturing and giving the baby care and attention."

That's why the 49-year-old has reared her company, Silkworm Books, with patience and purpose. And raising a good, healthy "child" has become her passion and pride.

"Publishing books takes time and effort: for writers to write, for editors to edit and for us to sell, distribute and promote their works," said the publisher. "We have to make sure that each book doesn't come out, disappear and never come back. Our titles must have a long shelf life."
What started as a small publisher, with Trasvin as the only employee, grew into an international publishing company at the forefront of scholarly, academic and professional publishing in Thailand. For 15 years, the independent Chiang Mai-based publishing house has produced a series of English-language books, primarily on topics related to mainland Southeast Asia in the areas of history, politics and development studies, many of which were written by prominent scholars and have been sold internationally.

To date, Silkworm's print runs are still small: Each title has a print run of 2,000 copies or less. Sometimes sales number less than 500 copies on certain titles. Trasvin, however, is proud of the fact that her company, once a little seed, has grown into such a big, fruitful tree. In the late 1980s Thai tourism was booming and English-language books on Thailand had increased in quantity, but not quality, she said. The young Trasvin saw there were only a few English titles locally published and the market on imported text books, general booksand books on architecture and design was still small.

"I love books and had been surrounded by books of all kinds since I was born," said the publisher with a genteel, scholarly accent. "So I was very frustrated as there was nothing in-depth and useful for serious travellers and me, myself, to read. Without hesitation, I decided to become a full-time publisher on my own." Growing up in the book trade -her family owns Suriwong Book Centre in Chiang Mai -and trained in publication design at Parsons School of Design, NYC, Trasvin naively thought it would be easy for her to get into and be successful in the publishing business.

"I was totally wrong," she admitted. "I simply registered a company with a capital of 200,000 baht. My family didn't oppose me or give big support. I could only hire a freelance editor to handle the editing. But basically I was working alone in the office."

Silkworm was established in 1989, but the imprint wasn't founded until 1991, and the first inhouse employee wasn't hired until eight years later. Trasvin recalled that in the early years authors wouldn't bother to contact an upcountry, amateur publisher like Silkworm Books.
The retail prices of imported academic books were also often high and unaffordable for Thais. Trasvin, hence, built up lists of books by licensing the ones that were already published but inaccessible in Thailand.

The very first book Silkworm licensed was Thailand: A Short History by the late professor David K. Wyatt, a veteran of Thai history who just passed away on November 14, 2006. A quality edition at an affordable price, Trasvin said the book was reprinted several times until the second edition, which is still available on the market, was released in 2003.

One of Silkworm's policies is to promote Thai authors and that's how Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation was born in 1994. Written by Thai academic and historian Thongchai Winichakul, the book is an intriguing study of nationhood, exploring the 19th-century confrontation of ideas that transformed the Kingdom of Siam into the modern conception of a nation.
In the following year, Thailand's Boom was released, and its second, expanded edition was printed in 1997 under a new title, Thailand's Boom and Bust, written by Dr Pasuk Phongpaichit and Dr Chris Baker. The book depicts issues of economic and political development, including information on all aspects of Thailand -politicians, farmers, labour, pop culture.

"This book was a best-seller and made us known on national and international levels," she said. "Such a book had never been written before. Such information was highly demanded by investors, professionals and diplomats who worked in and with Thailand. I read the manuscript [which] mentioned several 'godfather' names and I decided without a second thought that we had to do it."

Silkworm also publishes works of fiction, such as Mindfulness and Murder: A Father Ananda Mystery, the first in a murder-mystery series by Nick Wilgus, Bangkok-based writer and a Bangkok Post senior sub-editor. The book has been translated into French and German. The second title in the series, the recently released Garden of Hell: A Father Ananda Mystery, also received a warm welcome from readers, both locally and internationally.
One of Silkworm's lead titles next year will be Lao Royalty by Dr Grant Evans, one of the few experts on Laos, explaining why Lao royalty did not survive. The book contains in-depth information that the author collected from various archives around the world and from interviews with members of the royal family
who are still alive. It also includes hundreds of old, rare photographs of Lao royalty.

Its coffee-table size of more than 400 pages, and its small print run for a small target market, mean large amounts of money have
to be invested in its publication. Why does Trasvin insist on publishing this book? Is it worth the expense?

"If we don't, who will?" she asks. "Western publishers wouldn't care about this information. The present Lao government wouldn't
care, either," she said. "Once, the author asked me whether I preferred to make it smaller. I told him not to. I believe that, by
publishing the book, we are not just preserving Lao history, but also our own history. We are a part of its history and it's good that
we can read and understand more about our neighbour's history as well as ourselves.

"We, publishers, are information providers. It's better for us to provide information that promotes understanding, harmony and unity in the region," she said.
Silkworm recently launched Mekong Press, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Southeast Asian Studies Regional
Exchange Programme Foundation, which aims to encourage and support the work of local scholars, writers and publishing
professionals in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and other countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. The project provides a training
programme for publishers and editors in the region, publishes and distributes the works produced through the book trade, and
creates a network among publishers in the region in order to strengthen and improve publishing quality and to enable local
publications to reach a wider readership.

The Mekong Arranged and Rearranged by Maria S.I. Diokno and Nguyen Van Chinh and Laos: From Buffer State to Crossroads? by Vatthana Pholsena and Ruth Banomyong are the two titles under the Mekong Press imprint. Next year Mekong Press plans to release at least three titles and organise a publishing workshop in Hanoi, Trasvin said.

Silkworm has been on a slow, but nonetheless steady path of growth. For Trasvin, publishing books is rewarding and challenging. "But a publishing organisation doesn't happen overnight. Business has its ups and downs and there have been many obstacles along the way," she said.
Publishing books and trying to sell them in a country where English is not the first language is not easy, she said.

"There's a shortage of good, experienced editors. Not every farang with a degree in English can be an editor. Once we find one, we
have to go through tedious regulations to get her or him a work permit. Every year, I have to go through the same official papers,
about one-inch thick, of the same old information, for the same old editor," she said.

One of the "strange" regulations of the Thai Immigration Department, she said, is the escalator minimum wage based on nationality: The highest paid are from Japan, the US and Canada, respectively; the second rate are the UK, the EU and Australia, respectively; while Ireland, Africa and Latin America have yet another rate.

"I'm not sure whether it's a discrimination practice towards foreigners or a double standard. Our business needs native English speakers. They could be American, Australian, Irish, British or Indian. We should be able to pay them according to their experience, not their nationality.

"When we had a CEO government, I thought it might be a chance that many out of date and unnecessary laws would be improved. Of course, nothing happened," she said.

Working with booksellers has also been an impediment, she said. "In my early years, it was hard to pursue a bookseller in Bangkok to stock our books. Their spaces were expensive and they preferred displaying international best-selling titles or popular trade titles to ours. Then they would demand big discounts, which we could not afford," she recalled.

"Now the booksellers have more sympathy and they know that to stock decent titles by local authors and publishers can add colour to the store. It boosts the image of a bookstore as being a part of the community and offering something different to readers," she said.
In the business of book publishing, if professionalism means the skill expected of a professional, a publisher has to at least understand what and who are involved in the entire process: an author, an editor, a pre-press production staff, a printer, a distributor and a bookseller -no matter whether it's a bookstore or a direct mail merchant, she said.

"The most important player in our trade is an author. We have to make sure that we deliver what the author wants to offer to a reader. At the same time, we have to do our best to get a financial reward as the author deserves.
"Silkworm would provide better service for our authors and readers if our government regulations and our domestic book trade's standards improved. We have been preparing to sail. We're only waiting for the wind."

© Copyright The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2006