Be careful with music copyright infringement in cyberspace

(To Quoc) - The Internet is developing strongly, opening up opportunities for creators to participate in music activities in cyberspace: from creating, performing to publishing works, promoting the process of international integration, contributing to the development of Vietnam's cultural industry. However, preventing music copyright infringement in cyberspace is becoming increasingly complicated.

The author lost the rights to his own "child"

Recently, many musicians have sent petitions to the Vietnam Center for Music Copyright Protection (VCPMC) for legal support when they unfortunately signed contracts that lacked objectivity and transparency with another entity, affecting the author's rights and legitimate interests when they signed a contract to entrust the Center to protect and exploit copyright for their works. And most of the the company knows the works pretending to be members of VCPMC, but when invited to sign the contract, they all affirmed that signing with their company would not affect and would not conflict with their interests. between the author and VCPMC and with their company.

There are many situations where musicians, especially older musicians, are taken advantage of, and some musicians even say they have been deceived, as in the case of musician Hoang Song Huong with the work "Love of the Silver Sea and Green Fields".

Recently, musician Dai Phuong Trang also issued a warning and said that she herself had been sought after by several companies, texted with invitations to sell her work. She also noted that authors should be careful to avoid signing a contract but thinking that it is only for use, not fully anticipating the consequences of losing all rights due to the terms inserted in the contract.

In fact, many musicians are “stuck” in a situation where they cannot collect royalties from online platforms, when they “accidentally” sign a contract that waives all royalties. Because there is a situation where many online platforms have terms that only benefit them, without paying any royalties to musicians, but all are drafted in English, so many musicians “blurredly” sign, when they hear that the work is put on the online platform for the public to listen to... leading to a situation where all royalties are lost, and profits flow into the pockets of online businesses.

According to the legal department of VCPMC, in many common cases, inserting unfavorable terms and content into a contract to get musicians to sign is quite common, because they take advantage of the artists' open, generous and sentimental personalities, believing in words exchanged and easily signing, and then after signing, giving everything to the other person without keeping any copies... There are many situations where musicians, especially older musicians, are taken advantage of, and some musicians even said they were deceived, such as in the case of musician Hoang Song Huong with the work "Love of the silver sea and green copper". This incident has been going on since 2021, but has lasted until now and has not been completely resolved.

Or in the case of musician Tran Thanh Tung, author of famous songs such as "Don't compare me to the sea", "Nguyet Ho love song", "Bien hat loi anh ca", he was also very upset when he had to speak up because of a contract with a concept swapped. He also admitted that he was legally inexperienced and was deceived. Because after signing for a week, he did not receive the original contract as agreed, then 2 months later he still did not see it. Unable to contact him by phone, he followed the address to the company. However, they received the musician at a coffee shop with a contract returned without the company seal, without the seal between the pages...

After asking a friend about the matter, musician Thanh Tung learned that the contract had been swapped, modified, and showed signs of fraud, so he sent a petition to the Copyright Office requesting that the private company not be granted a power of attorney because the contract did not clearly state the names of the composer and lyricist. At the same time, he also sent a petition requesting that VCPMC, on behalf of the musician, take steps to terminate the contract and handle related issues. This is also a great experience for authors and musicians to take note of, and be more careful before any proposal or contract.

Along with musicians Hoang Song Huong, Tran Thanh Tung, Giang Son, Ngoc Thinh, musician Bao Chan also fell into a troublesome situation when his work - his brainchild - had its rights violated and was not respected, even using any means to force and "bully" the author in order to nullify the rights of the creator of the work.

Musician Bao Chan is also a victim of copyright infringement on the internet.

According to the legal department of VCPMC, when musician Bao Chan himself realized that signing a power of attorney contract with a private unit was hasty, inappropriate, and even inconsistent with what had been discussed orally before, the musician quickly requested the private company to terminate this power of attorney from June 2021. However, the musician's wish was not respected by this unit, forcing the musician to authorize a lawyer to work many times and officially file a lawsuit in court to protect his legitimate rights and interests from 2022.

Although the Court of First Instance in 2023 accepted the request of musician Bao Chan. However, this unit still deliberately continued to make it difficult for the musician, appealed the first instance judgment, causing the case to continue to drag on. This made an elderly musician like musician Bao Chan feel extremely tired and disappointed.

After another year of struggling to reclaim his own work, the Appeal Court finally upheld the original verdict. Once again, justice was on the side of the Musician, the truth was revealed, and the work and the right to decide on the work were returned to the Author. However, the entire incident and its persistence had greatly affected the Musician's life, health, and spirit.

Not to mention the expensive costs of lawyers, making records, collecting evidence, and then traveling countless times from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi... to file complaints, resolve disputes, and pursue the lawsuit for more than 3 years in both the first instance and appeal stages (from 2021 to 2024), in addition, musician Bao Chan's copyright income also encountered conflicts, temporarily suspended and could not be received for a long period of time, due to having to wait for the Court's judgment and decision to be enforced. This consequence is something that the author could not have expected. This is also a lesson to help musicians and authors to be more aware of protecting their legitimate rights, be cautious before any transaction to avoid unnecessary troubles, hardships, and losses.

Carefully choose qualified units

Talking about contracts with swapped concepts, leading to copyright conflicts, musician Giang Son said: “One of the tricks of violation is to insert clauses in the contract that are disadvantageous to the author. If the author does not read carefully, it will cause great damage to the long-term copyright. So before signing any contract, I hope authors will read it carefully or consult a lawyer to review it.”

Musician Giang Son's point of view is that copyright must always be respected.

Musician Giang Son's point of view is that copyright must always be respected. "The parties using and exploiting must have clear responsibilities, cannot just abuse the mechanisms of the platforms or intermediaries to blame each other, evade and be irresponsible... so that in the end, the musician and the composer must suffer a lot of damage, frustration, affecting the work as well as affecting the spirit and creative motivation of the artist - Musician Giang Son emphasized.

As one of the musicians who signed a contract with VCPMC from the early days, musician Hoai An further explained: “After the author passes away, the copyright is still guaranteed for 50 years for the heir. Therefore, who is authorized, in which field, for how long... all directly affect the author's rights. Reviewing authorized works, carefully reading and understanding the terms... is also not a simple matter. In fact, there have been contracts that "insert" sentences, definitions... causing many disadvantages for the author."

Vietnamese law has basically met the requirements for copyright protection in accordance with Vietnam's practical requirements, fully meeting the international treaties to which Vietnam is a member. However, the situation of copyright infringement in the digital environment is at an alarming level. Infringements from property rights (such as copying rights, derivative rights, performance rights, broadcasting rights, communication rights, works...) to personal rights (rights to publish works, rights to name, title works, protect the integrity of works...) are still taking place quite complicatedly with many different tricks. In addition to violations on digital technology platforms, there are many cases of copyright infringement, related rights in the fields of performance, performance organization...

Many entities seek to avoid or not comply with the regulations on requesting permission and paying for copyright use, leading to the infringement, damage and disrespect of the author's legitimate rights and interests, causing much frustration for creators and the public. A more complex, unpredictable and damaging phenomenon, causing more frustration, is the increasing appearance of many forms of transfer or authorization transactions that lack transparency and honesty, taking advantage of inserting confusing words in contracts to usurp ownership of works or the right to use the entire collection of works with dozens, even hundreds, thousands of works for an extremely cheap and deceptive price. The degradation of business ethics of some of these organizations and individuals is truly alarming, condemnable and in need of joint efforts to prevent.

The issue of music exploitation in the digital environment is a hot topic and is of great interest today . Many national and international conferences and seminars are held. Accordingly, copyright experts recommend that, in order to ensure the enforcement of copyright protection, in addition to the international legal system and national law, the government should: the creators - copyright owner, related rights You also need to clearly understand your legal rights and carefully choose qualified units. to protect your own property./.

Source: https://toquoc.vn/can-trong-voi-vi-pham-ban-quyen-am-nhac-tren-khong-gian-mang-20241114164422371.htm