Report on the Development of Copyright Laws in Vietnam
Copyright Committee – Vietnam Recognized Group of APAA
1. Legislation:
On 16 October 2013, the Government issued a new regulation concerning copyright has been
introduced, namely, Decree No. 131/ND-CP/2013 on sanctions against administrative
violations of copyright and related rights in substitution of Decree No. 47/2009/ND/CP and
Decree No. 109/2011/ND-CP amending and supplementing some articles of Decree No.
47/2009/ND-CP on the same issues. The new Decree introduced more severe administrative
remedies against copyright violations, especially in the field of cinematography and television.
The maximum administrative fine applied to copyright violations under this Decree is up to
VND500,000,000 (approx. US$24.000).
The new Decree became effective on 15 December 2013.
2. Copyright protection activities:

Copyright registration: According to statistic of Copyright Office of Vietnam (COV), in
2013, the COV issued a total number of nearly 5000 certificates of copyright
registrations, 32.73% of them are for “applied fine art works”, 25.75 of them are for
literary works, 20.92% for musical works and 9.15% for computer program and database
collection1.

Collective management: The Copyright and Related rights collective management
system in Vietnam has been established with four organizations, including the Vietnam
Literary Copyright Center (VLCC), the Recording Industry Association of Vietnam
(RIAV), the Vietnam Center for Protection of Music Copyright (VCPMC), and the
Vietnam Reproduction Rights Organization (VIETPRO). The VCPMC has been the most
active collective management organization. In 2013, it has collected an amount of 57
billion VND (approx. US$2,715,000). The highest rate is collected from telephone music,
music downloadable websites, performance, TV and Radio broadcasting …
In the first six months of 2014, it has collected an amount of more than 25.7 billion VND
(approx. US$1,224,000). By June 2014, VCPMC already had 2943 members2.

End-user Piracy Enforcement: On 16 June 2013, Inspectors from the Ministry of
Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Ministry of Public Security raided Long John Dong
Nai International – a footwear manufacturer in Dong Nai. They found unlicensed
software from Lac Viet and Microsoft on 69 computers, valued up to VND1 billion
(US$45,000). Microsoft and Lac Viet then sent a Cease & Desist letter requesting Long
1
According to the statistics published by the Copyright Office of Vietnam available at
http://www.cov.gov.vn/cbq/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1347:bn-quyn-tac-givit-nam-nm-2013-mi-vn--va-s-kin&catid=49:van-de-va-su-kien&Itemid=102
2
Report of activities of VCPMC for the first six months of 2014, available at
http://vcpmc.org/vcpmc/images/files/1409129383.pdf
1
John to make public apology, buy licence and pay damages. However, they received no
co-operation from Long John in settling the case. They then filed a lawsuit against Long
John at Dong Nai’s People’s Court where the defendant is located. In March 2014, the
parties had settled the case. According to news reported on newspapers, Long John
agreed to make public apology and pay a compensation equivalent to 100% of the value
of the pirated software (i.e. approx. US$45,000).
This is reported to be the first case of end user software piracy that has been brought to
a People’s Court in Vietnam.
In summary, great efforts have been made by the Government to strengthen copyright
protection in the past year. Positive developments in copyright protection have been
observed. Enforcement authorities continued to take actions against the copyright violations in
various forms including pirated books, pirated computer software and violations. However,
copyright violations continue to be challenging to enforcement authorities, especially when
more and more copyrighted works are now created in digital forms and introduced on the
internet.
Vietnam has been attending actively in the process of negotiation for the Trans-Pacific
Partnership Agreement with Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia,
Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and the US. It is expected that the system for IP right
protection, generally, and copyright protection, in particular, will be improved significantly in
the upcoming year.
2