Vietnam updates on copyright

Vietnam this week announced a renewed focus on copyright driven industries. A meeting in Hanoi this week saw the Motion Picture Association and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Hang commit to more partnerships between US film, TV and digital content companies and Vietnamese creative businesses. Vietnam’s economic goals include high growth in technology and innovation and the importance of protecting and enforcing intellectual property (IP) rights underlines this.

Last month the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism issued Decision No. 2558/QD-BVHTTDL. This renamed the Copyright Office as the Cultural Industries and Copyright Office (CICO).  It increased its enforcement function too (previously a source of concern among foreign creative sectors) to handle more infringement cases directly. Access and content blocking orders against ISPs can be issued by the CICO to enable copyright owners to tackle digital infringement. For more detail see here Rouse - Vietnam strengthens copyright enforcement role of the “New Copyright Office”

The CICO head in an interview in August mentioned increased focus on copyright enforcement agencies especially with the Police Department of Cyber Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention (A05) as well as training programmes for businesses to improve business software licensing.

Over the recent months since the USTR report in May there have been various national awareness-raising and enforcement campaigns. Next amendments to the Criminal Code on copyright infringement the digital environment are proposed, to make the penalties more severe and deterrent. Eventually Vietnam hopes to have a standalone Copyright Law, outside the IP law.