The arduous task of protecting copyright.

It has been exactly 20 years since Vietnam joined the Berne Convention (October 2004) on intellectual property rights. This is not a short period of time, yet copyright infringement in the country remains widespread and is becoming increasingly complex.

Violations across multiple areas

At a recent annual workshop on copyright and reproduction rights held in Ho Chi Minh City, photographer Doan Hoai Trung, President of the Ho Chi Minh City Photography Association, recounted an incident where a senior colleague gifted him a book about a historical figure whose cover featured a photograph he himself had taken. However, the photograph lacked attribution. When asked about it, the colleague casually replied, "I found the picture online, thought it was beautiful, and used it. I only just found out it was yours." The outcome of that encounter was simply a lighthearted exchange of laughter between the two men!

This is not an isolated case. Once, photographer Nguyen Xuan Han accidentally visited the website muoibaclieu.com.vn and discovered that the site was using 15 of his photos without permission, without crediting the author, and without citing the source…

Or consider the case of photographer Ta Quang Bao, who discovered that a large hotel in Hanoi displayed over 100 of his photos without permission. When questioned, the hotel claimed they found them online and used them without permission.

According to photographer Doan Hoai Trung, in the era of Industry 4.0, photography is a rapidly developing and diverse field within literature and art. The number of photographers is also increasing rapidly, potentially producing millions of photos every day. However, copyright protection in this field has not received adequate attention, leading to an increasing number of violations using various methods and tactics.

According to photographer Doan Hoai Trung, photography is a field where copyright infringement is quite common today.

"Copyright infringement in photography is quite common, especially on social media platforms and corporate websites," said photographer Doan Hoai Trung.

Copyright infringement is not limited to photography; it occurs in many other fields. Lawyer Phan Vu Tuan from Phan Law Office stated that currently, over 300 books published by Tre Publishing House are being counterfeited or pirated. This represents 20% of the best-selling books, accounting for 80% of the publisher's revenue. Furthermore, on digital platforms, copyright infringement of books in the form of PDFs and audiobooks is particularly complex, causing significant losses not only to publishing houses but also to their partners and licensing entities.

According to lawyer Phan Vu Tuan, in the first five months of this year, there were 66,433 cases of copyright infringement of Vietnamese films (owned by K+ channel) on digital platforms, of which 46,684 cases have been processed. Regarding football broadcasts, during the 2023-2024 season alone, there were over 5.8 million cases of infringement, mainly on the Facebook platform.

There is no fundamental solution yet.

The Vietnam Copyright Association (Vietrro) was established in 2010 with the main function of collectively representing copyright and related rights, as stipulated in Article 56 of the Intellectual Property Law. To date, Vietrro has signed bilateral cooperation agreements with 22 organizations from countries such as Japan, South Korea, Russia, India, Hungary, and the Philippines.

However, according to Ms. Nguyen Thi Sanh, Permanent Vice President of Vietrro, over the past 14 years, Vietrro members have traveled from North to South, organizing numerous workshops to raise public awareness about copyright, but things remain very unclear. “The root cause of copyright infringement is the awareness of users. However, raising public awareness about this issue is extremely difficult,” Ms. Nguyen Thi Sanh shared.

According to lawyer Phan Vu Tuan, the field of copyright is very complex, and the issues are becoming increasingly difficult. “In 2023, we handled 5.8 million online copyright infringement cases. While in previous years we handled 1-5 websites annually, in 2023 we shut down 1,000 infringing websites. This number shows that the fight against copyright infringement in Vietnam is taking strong action, not inaction,” lawyer Phan Vu Tuan added.

According to Doan Hoai Trung, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Photography Association, copyright infringement of photographic works occurs frequently, yet the issue of handling violations receives very little attention from those in charge. Copyright in photography is protected by law, but in reality, authors whose copyrights are infringed are rarely protected. This situation is creating a bad precedent where those whose copyrights are violated don't know who to turn to for help.

From there, photographer Doan Hoai Trung raised the issue: "Currently, there is no tool considered a standard for proactively controlling and detecting violations in cyberspace related to photography in particular and the fields of literature and art in general. This poses many difficulties in detecting and handling violations."

Source: https://baolaocai.vn/gian-nan-bao-ve-ban-quyen-post388639.html