Copyright in Vietnam

According to Law on Intellectual Property, copyright is the right of an organization or individual to works which such an organization or individual created or owns. Copyright is recognized for literary, artistic, and scientific works such as books, lectures, musical works, theatrical works, and cinematographic works,… Copyright shall arise at the moment a work is created and fixed in a certain material form, irrespective of its content, quality, form, mode, and language and irrespective of whether or not such work has been published or registered.

Copyright related rights (referred to as related rights) means rights of an organization or individual to performances, audio, and visual fixation, and broadcasts and satellite signals carrying coded programs.

Although copyright registration is not required, if an individual or an organization that is an author has registered copyright/related rights with the Copyright Office of Vietnam – literature, and arts will bring a lot of benefits when a dispute occurs.

Legal basis

The Law on Intellectual Property 2005 as amended and implemented in 2009, 2019, 2023 (hereby reffered to as The IP Law)

Subjects have the right to register copyright

According to Article 13 the IP Law, authors and copyright holders with works that are protected by copyright include:

• Organizations and individuals with works that are protected by copyright comprise persons who directly create such works and copyright holders.
• Authors and copyright holders shall comprise Vietnamese organizations and individuals; foreign organizations and individuals with works are published for the first time in Vietnam and have not been published in any other country yet, or with works are also published in Vietnam within thirty days after publication for the first time in another country; and foreign organizations and individuals with works which are protected in Vietnam according to an international treaty on the copyright of which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a member.

Types of works that are protected by copyright

According to Article 14 the IP Law, literary, artistic and scientific works include:

• Literary works, scientific works, textbooks, teaching courses, and other works expressed in written language or other characters;
• Lectures, addresses, and other speeches;
• Pressworks;
• Musical works;
• Stage works;
• Cinematographic works and works created by a process analogous to cinematography (hereinafter all referred to as cinematographic works);
• Plastic artworks and applied artworks;
• Photographic works;
• Architectural works;
• Sketches, plans, maps, and drawings related to topography or scientific works;
• Folklore and folk artworks;
• Computer programs and data collections.

This also stipulates: Derivative works “means a work translated from one language to another, adapted, modified, transformed, compiled, annotated, selected work”. This type of work are protected only if it does not affect the copyright of works used to make derivative works. Besides that, it must be created directly by the author through certain intellectual labor without being copied from the work of others.

Objects that are not protected by copyright protection include:

• News of the day as mere items of information;
• Legal instruments, administrative and other documents in the judicial domain, and official translations of such documents;
• Processes, systems, operational methods, concepts, principles, and data.

Term of protection for copyrights and related rights

Moral rights of the authors including:

• Giving titles to their works;
• Attaching their real names or pseudonyms to their works, having their real names or pseudonyms acknowledged when their works are published or used;
• Publishsing their works or to authorize other persons to publish their works.
• Protecting the integrity of their works, and forbidding other persons to modify, edit or distort their works in whatever form, causing harm to the honor and reputation of the author.

These rights shall be protected for an indefinite term.

Rights to publish their works or to authorize other persons to publish their works and asset rights:

• Cinematographic works, photographic works, works of applied art, and anonymous works have a term of protection of seventy-five years from the date of first publication. For cinematographic works, photographic works, and works of applied art that remain unpublished within twenty-five years from the date of fixation, the term of protection is one hundred years from the date of fixation. For anonymous works, when information on their authors is published, the term of protection will be calculated below;
• A work not specified at Point a of this Clause is protected for the whole life of the author and fifty years after his/her death. For work under joint authorship, the term of protection expires in the fiftieth year after the death of the last surviving co-author;
• The term of protection specified at Points a and b of this Clause expires at 24-hour of December 31 of the year of expiration of the copyright protection term.

Copyright registration is also known as copyright protection, the purpose is to ensure creators of works against illegal use of works such as theft, copying, abuse. In case a dispute occurs, the Copyright Registration Certificate is the best proof of the author’s ownership over the work. Furthermore, it is also proof of ownership of a work, used when valuing the company’s assets in case of equitization, merger, or acquisition. Copyright registration is one of the administrative procedures with competent state agencies for owners to apply for a license to publish books, stories,…

The assessment to grant a copyright registration certificate is carried out based on the commitment of the owner of that logo but without synchronous system to manage and search for the origin of this logo. The registration for copyright protection is not a mandatory procedure for entitlement to copyright, it is not also the basis of the establishment of copyright, work; whether registered or not registered these rights equally have the same protection.

In addition, applied artworks can be protected in the form of trademark registration

This is a protection procedure that guarantees the strongest legal ownership for logo owners (applied artworks). Trademark registration protection content: protects both text and image content (if the logo includes words), against the act of using a similar logo that confuses even though it is not 100% identical. Trademarks have strict regulations on duplication and confusion to assess the level of infringement when being copied and used without permission.

Viet An Law Firm is simutaneously an intellectual property representative organazation can supply service to assit your work to be ensures maximun legally in Vietnam. Kindly contact us for further information and advice.