Copyright in Art: Technology Goes Hand in Hand with Consciousness

In the context of art creation becoming increasingly complicated by the application of new technologies, leading to overlapping responsibilities and interests between creators and collectors, the question of how to ensure copyright and intellectual property rights for works of art is receiving more attention than ever.

In search of copyright

The Center for Law and Copyright under the Vietnam Copyright Association (VIETRRO) has just announced the verification and addition of copyright for a number of works whose authors have not been clearly identified. These are: Portrait of actress Tra Giang (author: anonymous), Photo of Miss Vietnam Thu Trang on the first day of her coronation in 1955 (author: anonymous) and Portrait of Thanh Nga (author: Thanh Chi). This is considered a "strange action", because up to now, most anonymous works have been considered a public archive, used for free.

Visitors to the painting exhibition at the Quang San Art Museum

To explain this, many collectors cite Article 27 of the current Intellectual Property Law on limited-term protection (Transferable moral rights and copyright) as follows: For posthumous works, the term is 50 years from the first day of publication; for works of applied art, photographic works, cinematographic works, and anonymous works, the term is 75 years from the first day of publication; for works that have not been published within 25 years from the day of creation, the term of protection is 100 years; for works of other types, the term of protection is for the lifetime of the author and 50 years following the year of the author's death. Only after the term of copyright protection expires does the ownership of the work belong to the public.

“In the past, many people used the reason that the author had passed away a long time ago to assume that the work naturally belonged to the public, deliberately forgetting the specific provisions of the law. VIETRRO’s actions are essentially simply to respect copyright according to current law to ensure the rights, if any, of the author or heir,” said an art collector in Ho Chi Minh City.

Difficult to resolve clash

The lack of respect for copyright has pushed the domestic art market into a chaotic situation, where copyright infringement is becoming more and more complicated, no longer simply plagiarism as before.

A typical example is the copyright dispute between watercolor artist D.Q. and director PNML that has lasted for more than 3 years but has not yet been resolved thoroughly. Specifically, director PNML accused the painting Corner of the Boudoir by artist D.Q. of having many details similar to a scene in PNML's film project Co Du. This scene was originally conceived, designed, and staged using ancient artifacts combined with CGI technology (computer-generated imagery) and is considered a complete creative work of the director and production team. This can be considered an unprecedented lawsuit (suspected plagiarism between a painting and a movie scene), with no specific regulations, leading to a difficult determination of right and wrong.

Or the story of the artist Teo Pham has been going on for more than 5 years, but there is no end in sight and no way to handle it. After posting a picture of the artist's work on his personal page, an individual copied and encrypted the NFT (Non-Fungible Token is a digital artwork that is encrypted and traded on the blockchain - PV), successfully selling it for nearly 1,000 USD. In principle, NFT encryption cannot be canceled, so the encrypted work is considered to no longer belong to the author.

In the current context, artistic creation cannot stand outside the development of technology. However, technology is not only applied as a tool for creation, but also plays an important role in protecting copyright. Because protecting works is protecting artists, preserving the value of creative labor and transparency for collectors. As one of the people whose works have been copied, artist Bui Trong Du expressed: “Technology is an effective tool for artists to protect their works. However, people are the ones who really decide. If consumers are determined not to use counterfeit or illegally copied goods; artists whose copyrights have been violated are determined to fight for their copyright; and authorities take strong action against those who deliberately violate, there will certainly be no room for copyright infringement.”

HONG DUONG

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/chuyen-ban-quyen-trong-nghe-thuat-cong-nghe-di-doi-voi-y-thuc-post806882.html