According to the latest regulations, when copyright disputes occur in the digital environment, payment intermediary platforms must restore digital content information that has been removed or blocked by a court decision, or by written request from a competent state agency.
Decree 17/2023/ND-CP (Decree 17) detailing a number of articles and measures to implement the Law on Intellectual Property and Copyright and Related Rights takes effect from April 26, 2023. One of the newest points of this Decree is that intermediary service providers must be responsible for protecting copyright and related rights in the telecommunications network and Internet environment.
According to Section 8 of Decree 17, intermediary service providers are domestic and foreign enterprises that provide one, some or all of the following services: "transmission only"; "cache storage"; "storage of digital information content on request".
Enterprises providing intermediary services must be responsible for protecting copyrights and related rights in the telecommunications network and Internet environment. In addition, enterprises providing intermediary services must also be legally responsible for acts of infringement of copyrights and related rights.
Article 114 of Decree 17 clearly stipulates the process of removing or blocking access to digital information content of intermediary service providers upon receiving a request from copyright and related rights owners.
Accordingly, to be exempted from legal liability as prescribed in Point c, Clause 3, Article 198b of the Law on Intellectual Property, an enterprise providing intermediary services of "storing digital information content on request" upon receiving a request from the copyright owner or related rights holder (referred to as the requesting party) with supporting documents and evidence as prescribed in Clause 4, Article 114 through the tool for receiving requests to remove or block access to digital information content that infringes copyright or related rights as prescribed in Clause 1, Article 111 of the Decree must comply with Points a, b, and c in Clause 1, Article 114.
In which, point c of this clause clearly states: From the time of forwarding documents and evidence to the requesting party as prescribed in point b, clause 1, Article 114, if the requesting party or the requested party does not initiate a civil lawsuit or request the competent state agency to handle the infringement or the Court; the competent state agency does not decide to accept the application as prescribed by law, the enterprise providing intermediary services shall maintain and restore the digital information content that has been removed or blocked.
In case the Court or competent state agency decides to accept the application of one of the two parties, the intermediary service provider shall remove/block the content according to the decision of the Court or competent state agency as prescribed by law.
Thus, with this regulation, intermediary platforms such as domestic telecommunications carriers, ISPs, cross-border platforms (such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, etc.) can remove and block digital content when requested and have grounds to prove the infringement from the right owner. However, the party requesting the blocking/removal cannot only use a petition to request the removal/blocking but must also use the Blocking Decision of the Court or competent state agency.
With this new regulation, Vietnamese businesses have grounds to request platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok to restore removed/blocked content in the event that a court has decided that the defendant did not violate copyright, or complied with a written request from a Vietnamese state agency.
Decree 17/2023/ND-CP of the Government will be of great help in the process of protecting copyright and related rights in the telecommunications and Internet environments, thereby ensuring fairness and supporting dispute resolution when there is an abuse of intellectual property rights to cause difficulties and damage to competitors.
Decree 17/2023/ND-CP detailing a number of articles and measures for implementing the 2005 Law on Intellectual Property; the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the 2009 Law on Intellectual Property; the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Insurance Business, the 2019 Law on Intellectual Property and the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the 2022 Law on Intellectual Property (hereinafter referred to as the Law on Intellectual Property) on copyright and related rights.
Tra Khanh
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