Photo textbooks are considered copyright infringement?

Reproduction is the right of the copyright owner to exclusively make or authorize others to make copies of a work by any means or form, including making copies in the form of electronic. Reproduction here means making one or more copies of a work or sound recording, video recording by any means or form. Photo is a form of reproduction of the author’s work. At present, it is very common to copy books, especially in universities, students usually use photo textbooks to save costs. So, according to the law, Photo text books are considered copyright infringement? In this article, Viet An Law will help you answer this question.

Legal basis

Intellectual Property Law 2005, as amended and supplemented in 2009, 2019, 2022.

Exceptions of using copyrights in Vietnam

According to Clause 1, Article 25 of the Intellectual Property Law, the use cases of published works without asking for permission, without paying royalties and remunerations include:

• Self-reproduce a copy for scientific research, personal study and not for commercial purposes. This provision does not apply in the case of copying by means of a copying device;
• Reasonable reproduction of a part of a work using a copying device for scientific research, personal study and for non-commercial purposes;
• Reasonable use of the work for illustration in lectures, publications, performances, phonograms, video recordings, broadcasts for teaching purposes. This use may include making available on an internal computer network provided that technical measures are taken to ensure that only learners and instructors in the session have access to this work;
• Using works in official activities of state agencies;
• Reasonably cite the work without misleading the author to comment, introduce or illustrate in his work; for newspaper writing, use in periodicals, broadcasts, documentaries;
• Non-commercial use of the work in a librarianship, including copying a work stored in a library for preservation, provided that the copy is marked as an archival copy and restricted to subject to access in accordance with the law on libraries and archives; reasonably copy part of a work by means of a copying device for another person to serve research and study; copy or transmit a work held for inter-library use over a computer network, provided that the number of readers at one time does not exceed the number of copies of the work held by the aforementioned libraries hold, except as authorized by the right holder and not where the work has been made available on the market in digital form;
• Performing theatrical, musical, dance and other art performances in cultural activities, non-commercial propaganda activities;
• Taking pictures or broadcasting works of fine art, architecture, photography or applied art displayed in public places to introduce images of such works, not for commercial purposes;
• Import copies of other people’s work for personal, non-commercial use;
• Reproduction by republishing in newspapers, periodicals, broadcasting or other forms of communication to the public a lecture, speech, or other speech presented to the public to the extent appropriate for the purpose of news information purposes, except where the author claims to hold the copyright;
• Taking pictures, recording, recording and broadcasting events for the purpose of news reporting, including using works heard or seen in that event;
• People with visual impairments, people with disabilities who cannot read print and other disabled people who cannot access works to read in the usual way (hereinafter referred to as disabled people), nurturers, caregivers for people with disabilities, organizations that meet the conditions prescribed by the Government to use works as prescribed in Article 25a of this Law.

Photo textbooks are considered copyright infringement?

According to the above provisions, the reproduction of a work only requires no permission and does not have to pay royalties and honorarium when ” self-reproducing a copy for  scientific research, personal study and not for commercial purposes” provided that copying without the use of a copying device (copy machine) and ” Reasonably copying part of a work by a copying device for personal research and study and not for commercial purposes”.

Therefore, photocopying textbooks for scientific research, personal study or storing in libraries for research purposes is not considered copyright infringement. Other cases that do not fall into these cases will have to obtain permission and pay copyright fee and remuneration to the author or owner of the work. Failure to obtain permission and pay royalties and remuneration to the author or owner of the work will infringe copyright.

The condition for using the work in these cases is that the user must provide information about the author’s name and the origin and origin of the work, such as a reasonable citation of the work when mentioned in another work of the author. me.

Personal use in accordance with the law is being understood as equivalent to the phrase “non-commercial purposes”, which means that in cases where the purpose of use is determined to be for profit such as rental, users users will not be entitled to this non-intrusive exception. This regulation still has some disadvantages when it has not prevented common use cases, borrowed to copy or even cloned in large quantities but not for profit. Therefore, this practice of copying still takes place and reduces the value of the work containing copyright on the market, causing damage to the author and the copyright owner.

Viet An Law Firm is a reputable intellectual property representative organization on intellectual property legal advice. If you have any related questions, please contact Viet An Law Firm for the fastest support.