Alliance needed to stop "brain theft"

Low awareness of copyright protection

In today's digital environment, protecting press copyright is an important condition to remove barriers to the development of digital content and related issues such as digital business, which is an important condition for the success of digital transformation of journalism.

A survey of the current state of intellectual property rights violations at Tuoi Tre Newspaper - one of the newspapers with the largest readership in the country - shows that currently, the situation of copying and "remixing" news from Tuoi Tre Newspaper is very common. The "tricks" used by some other press agencies are copying parts, copying the main content, copying news and copying the entire article...

In addition, on popular social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, etc., there are many cases of intellectual property copyright infringement. Up to now, 6 YouTube channels have been flagged by Tuoi Tre Newspaper for illegally taking information from Tuoi Tre Newspaper (including major press agencies). After that, thanks to the removal, Tuoi Tre Newspaper removed them in the spirit of reminder. Only a few press agencies in Vietnam have sent documents requesting to cite sources to Tuoi Tre Newspaper in the spirit of seeking advice.

In addition to domestic copyright infringement, Tuoi Tre Newspaper also has its information and data "innocently" used by foreign websites. Accordingly, 26 other foreign channels have been flagged for copyright by Tuoi Tre Newspaper, but they have not removed them...

need alliance to prevent substance abuse phenomenon 1 — Journalist Nguyen Duc Hien - Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper said that press agencies can proactively cooperate with each other to establish an Alliance to protect copyright of press works to support each other in this activity.

According to experts, one of the most important reasons for the increase in press copyright infringement is that a significant proportion of users, including journalists and content creators, still lack understanding of copyright and may infringe copyright unintentionally.

Awareness of copyright protection, knowledge, skills, cultural and ethical standards of journalists and press agencies have not really received the attention they need.

Talking about the above situation, journalist Nguyen Duc Hien - Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper shared that there is information published in a newspaper that only has a certain coverage, derivative articles even attract more readers, infringing on the rights of copyright holders in many aspects.

Journalist Nguyen Duc Hien said: "About 4 years ago, some major press agencies in Ho Chi Minh City such as Tuoi Tre, Thanh Nien, Phap Luat, and Phu Nu also discussed forming an alliance to prevent this situation, but I attended the 3rd meeting and did not see this content continued. This shows that we ourselves are not unified in our will and actions to protect ourselves ."

Giving an example of his agency, Mr. Nguyen Duc Hien said that in the past 2 years, the Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper has disciplined many reporters for taking articles from other newspapers to insert into their own articles - this is very difficult to detect, however, when discovered, the Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper has handled it very resolutely.

There were times when the newspaper was restricted by Google and the views dropped abnormally - to 40% in 2 weeks, after many discussions, Google said that the Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper had taken a part of the article that had been published before. However, another side of the problem shows that, for example, the speech before the National Assembly , all newspapers have the same, and they scan randomly.

A year and a half ago, Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper received an email from a law firm in London, demanding to sue for a news article the newspaper translated from their website, and providing grounds for copyright protection.

According to Mr. Hien, the above examples show that the awareness of each journalist and press agency in Vietnam about copyright issues is very low.

From the perspective of a leader of a large press agency, journalist Nguyen Hoang Nguyen - Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Secretary of the Association of Journalists of Tuoi Tre Newspaper, said that press agencies have made some moves to protect copyright but lack professionalism in organizing and implementing. He proposed that each press agency should establish a department, including specialized personnel, considering copyright protection as a specialty of journalism, then the organization and implementation will be more drastic, specific and effective.

"A press agency of course cannot fight copyright infringement alone, but requires solidarity, cooperation, and contribution from many press agencies. We have talked a lot about the initiative to establish an alliance, or a center for protecting copyright of press works, so who is the leader in advising on the establishment of this initiative? This question needs a solution and the necessary steps to be taken soon to establish it," said journalist Nguyen Hoang Nguyen.

Quick action is needed to deal with this.

According to the assessment of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information ( Ministry of Information and Communications ), copyright infringement of digital content tends to increase, mainly in entertainment such as football, movies, game shows, music, etc.

Copyright infringements are carried out in extremely sophisticated and ever-changing ways, and it is difficult to handle violations that are carried out across borders, from foreign countries providing services to Vietnam. Despite many efforts by management agencies, intermediary service providers, organizations, representatives of copyright owners, and copyright owners in coordination, the increasing trend of copyright infringement requires more practical and feasible solutions.

need alliance to prevent substance abuse phenomenon image 2 — The English Premier League, which is copyrighted by K+, has an average of 50 new websites created every month. Illegal websites that violate copyright all have international domain names, servers located abroad, and they all illegally advertise gambling games or illegal football betting. (Photo: VTV)

Recently, copyright owners have been upset by blatant and open copyright infringement, such as: some newspapers linking and livestreaming K+ content without permission; 7 press agencies were sued by VTV-cap; websites were opened to livestream football matches broadcast live by VTV and VTC; blocking one website immediately leads to another.

Moreover, the infringement handling process takes a whole week, so the copyright owner is in a situation where "the damage is already done", the economic loss is huge.

As the management agency for copyright and related rights, Ms. Pham Thi Kim Oanh - Deputy Director of the Copyright Department, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that the Copyright Department has advised the Government and the National Assembly to pass the Law on Amending and Supplementing a Number of Laws on Intellectual Property on June 16, 2022, including very important amendments in copyright protection in the digital environment and journalism is one of the types of works protected by copyright under Article 14 of the Law on Intellectual Property.

Notably, there are new rights such as the right to provide, the right to communicate works to the public, including providing works to the public at the time and place chosen. If other individuals and organizations copy press works without the consent of the owners of those rights, it is a violation, especially posting press works of editorial offices on social networking sites without consent, it is a violation of the right to communicate works to the public.

According to Ms. Pham Thi Kim Oanh, current press agencies are not proactive in protecting their copyrights, but the revised Intellectual Property Law has a chapter clearly stating the legal responsibilities of intermediary service providers in copyright enforcement - this is completely new content in this Intellectual Property Law, also to implement international commitments.

"One of the most important points is the mechanism for notification of removal directly from rights holders, editorial offices, and journalists to units that force the removal of violating digital content," Ms. Oanh emphasized, adding that the Government has issued a Regulation on notification of removal - requiring that within 72 hours of receiving the notification, the violating content must be removed.

As for the above live TV programs, there are regulations for immediate removal. Ms. Oanh suggests that newspapers proactively implement and carefully study Articles 110-114 of Decree 17, which was newly issued on April 26, 2023, and Article 198B of the Intellectual Property Law. Decree 17 has a separate section regulating how to exercise rights, how to submit applications, and which agencies to request.

"I hope that in addition to perfecting the legal framework, an important issue that is mentioned a lot is that units need to raise awareness of intellectual property rights holders, solidarity and strong connection between press agencies, between press agencies and press and media management agencies to fight against copyright infringement," said Ms. Pham Thi Kim Oanh.

Phan Hoa Giang

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