Musician earns over 1 billion VND in music royalties in 3 months

Musician Dinh Trung Can - General Director of the Vietnam Center for Music Copyright Protection (VCPMC) said that in the first quarter of 2024, a musician received 1.084 billion VND in royalties.

At the press conference on August 16, Mr. Dinh Trung Can said that in the first year of establishment (April 2002), the Center had 274 member authors, the amount of copyright revenue collected was only nearly 87 million VND. By August 2024, the number of domestic member authors increased to more than 6,400 people, the total copyright revenue in 2023 was more than 344 billion VND (excluding value added tax), of which the amount distributed and paid to copyright owners over 4 periods was more than 305 billion VND.

Meritorious Artist, Musician Dinh Trung Can. Photo: T.Le

According to the 2023 report of the International Confederation of Societies for the Protection of Copyright and Composers' Rights (CISAC), from 2019-2022, VCPMC ranked 1st in the world in terms of growth rate in the market share of music copyright on digital platforms.

"In the first quarter of 2024 alone, the musician who received the most music royalties was 1.084 billion VND; in the second quarter of 2024, the musician who received the most music royalties was 852 million VND. For personal reasons, I cannot disclose specific information, but they are all very famous," said Mr. Can.

Currently, VCPMC exploits and licenses nearly 30 fields using music in commercial business activities including the fields: Online (Digital), Broadcasting, Copying, Offline.

In the Digital field, VCPMC has been licensing most music platforms including domestic and international applications, websites, and social networks such as: YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Apple, Spotify, Zing MP3, Nhaccuatui...

Since 2019, VCPMC has collected music royalties in the Digital field for the above-mentioned Websites/apps and music platforms, accounting for about 86% of revenue from all fields.

Musician Dinh Trung Can affirmed that VCPMC is currently the only collective representative organization for music copyright in Vietnam under CISAC, cooperating bilaterally with 88 international organizations, covering 227 countries and territories. Therefore, VCPMC collects royalties on a global scale. Normally, VCPMC will deduct from 5 - 25% of the total royalties collected as administrative fees, authors will receive from 75% to 95% depending on the field.

Problems encountered by member authors

Mr. Dinh Trung Can said that VCPMC periodically reports to state management agencies and CISAC on collecting royalties and distributing royalties to member authors to ensure publicity and transparency.

Authors receive royalties quarterly through their personal accounts. Each time a payment is made, VCPMC sends an email notification with a detailed revenue statement with full information: work name, revenue collection area, name of paying organization/individual, contract/invoice number and amount.

Authors who sign contracts with VCPMC usually have a term of 5 years. However, the author has the right to unilaterally terminate the contract at any time, with just 45 days notice, without sanctions or compensation, and without having to go to court.

Mr. Dinh Trung Can said that there were musicians who "called for help" because they encountered problems when signing contracts with other units, causing confusion in many contents such as: Cooperation contract; License contract (with a clause granted to a third party); Copyright supervision contract; Song composition rental contract; Copyright transfer contract; Exploitation contract; Business contract...

To ensure the rights of the work owner, VCPMC has warned authors to carefully read the terms of the commission contract before signing.

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