Respect and transparency of music copyright - Lang Son Newspaper and Radio and Television Station

When the video "National Defense Corps" on Youtube was blocked, the audience could only see the video title but could not watch or listen to the content, causing the issue of music copyright to become a concern for production and distribution units.

It is worth mentioning that the work “National Defense Corps” from the album “Soldier’s Song Vol.2” invested in and produced by Tre Film Studio more than 20 years ago, has completed the payment of copyright fees. music , but was allegedly blocked by the Vietnam Copyright Protection Center (VCPMC) on the YouTube platform, even though the Center had been paid royalties by YouTube.

According to the production unit and Youtube, VCPMC did not give any prior notice, nor did they give any reason why they "blocked" the above videos .

A series of works had their copyright revoked twice.

According to the reflection of the music product management unit sent to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Copyright Office, the Internal Political Security Department - Ministry of Public Security and many press agencies, VCPMC has obstructed the dissemination of musical works. digital revolution

The work "National Defense Corps" on YouTube has been blocked and cannot be viewed.

The music product management unit “Song of the Soldier Vol.2” said that despite having discussed with VCPMC many times about blocking the dissemination of songs - while Youtube has a Content ID and Youtube Music mechanism, through which Youtube always has a mechanism to pay copyright fees, ensuring the rights of copyright owners represented by VCPMC. With this policy of Youtube, copyright fees are always paid, but VCPMC continues to block videos without giving any legitimate reason.

The representative of Young Film Studio's music product authorization on Youtube said that, looking at Youtube's content management system, VCPMC_CS (ie VCPMC) has received 100% of the "Performance" (PR - performance right) and 100% of the "Reproduction" (MR - Mechanical Right) rights in Vietnam from Youtube by attaching/embedding its rights into the audio recording linked to the video on Youtube. From there, YouTube will return the copyright money to VCPMC for the songs and videos that VCPMC has attached the rights to. The unit affirmed that VCPMC has received the copyright money paid by Youtube from the above videos, but VCPMC continues to "block" the video to collect the copyright money a second time, which is an act of abusing Youtube's tools to collect copyright money.

Most of the products of Young Film Studio were produced decades ago. Currently, these videos no longer have commercial value, but only cultural, historical and political values. Re-releasing on the Youtube platform is an effort by traditional record companies to continue to extend the life of cultural products. On the other hand, the public also benefits from accessing these cultural products, without having to pay any fees.

Images prove that VCPMC received music royalties from YouTube, but still blocked the dissemination of the work.

In 2021, the incident of many YouTube channels automatically muted the National Anthem when broadcasting a football match on YouTube, which later caused the National Assembly to discuss the issue of not preventing or obstructing the dissemination of the National Anthem. Article 10 of the Intellectual Property Law 50/2005/QH11 (amended and supplemented by Law No. 36/2009/QH12, Law No. 07/2022/QH15) stipulates: "The exercise of intellectual property rights must not infringe upon the interests of the State, public interests, the rights and legitimate interests of organizations and individuals, and must not violate other relevant provisions of law".

Preventing the dissemination of music, the first victims are musicians

Some Youtube experts also believe that the abuse of intellectual property protection tools not only hinders the business and music dissemination activities of production units and distributors, but also causes damage to the authors/copyright owners. Because a musical work is only truly successful and meaningful when it is popularized and spread to the public, especially when the work is more widely popularized on the Youtube platform, the copyright rights of the author/copyright owner are more guaranteed because Youtube has a policy of paying royalties through copyright representatives that have cooperation contracts with Youtube, for example in Vietnam there is VCPMC.

Ms. Nguyen Thanh Thu, a legal expert on copyright issues, said: Article 198 of the Law on Intellectual Property stipulates: “Intellectual property rights holders have the right to apply technological measures to protect rights, provide information on rights management or apply other technological measures to prevent acts of infringement of intellectual property rights;

However, Clause 5, Article 198 of the Law on Intellectual Property also emphasizes that if an organization or individual abuses intellectual property protection procedures and causes damage to another organization or individual, the damaged organization or individual has the right to request the Court to force the party abusing the procedures to compensate for the damage caused by the abuse, including reasonable costs to hire a lawyer.

Documents proving that the work has been licensed for distribution for many years by the competent authority.

In accordance with international practice, for example in the US, Songtrust is a service that represents the author to collect song royalties. Songtrust, along with performing rights companies/CMOs (such as ASCAP and BMI) and reproduction rights (such as The Harry Fox Agency and The MLC) in the US, collect song royalties on Youtube through contracts signed with Youtube.

Through this, CMOs/author representation companies will collect money using the CMS system and Content ID provided by YouTube without contacting each specific video owner to request payment. Of course, they will not threaten to block, prevent deletion to require video owners on YouTube to pay separately. This is the correct, civilized and legal way to manage copyright.

Ms. Nguyen Thanh Thu gave an example and expressed her hope that relevant parties, units and organizations authorized by authors and authors' families to enforce copyright ownership rights need to operate openly and transparently, avoiding violations of the law; at the same time, she hoped that in the coming time, competent authorities would coordinate with relevant units and organizations to further improve legal regulations on copyright fee policies, collection methods, and copyright fee price lists, which need to be more specific and clear to promote the development of the cultural industry in the field of music on digital platforms and balance to ensure the rights of parties such as authors and producers.

Source: https://baolangson.vn/ton-trong-minh-bach-tac-quyen-am-nhac-5045675.html