Seminar on copyright law in developing countries with Waseda University, Japan

On the afternoon of March 24, 2010, at the National University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City, Center for Vietnamese and South East Asian Studies held a seminar on copyright law in developing countries, chaired by Prof. Nakamura and Prof. Koji Domon with the participation of the representatives of Center for protecting copyright law, Publishing houses, journalists, TV reporters and lecturers. The Seminar, “Copyright in Developing Countries,” had Vietnamese and Japanese experts presenting on this important topic that is currently being debated about all throughout South East Asia and the developing world.

The presenters’ topics varied in breadth and depth, but all focusing on the central topic of copyright law. Professor Koji Domon, University of Social Sciences, Waseda University, Japan presented on the direct correlation between GDP/ capita and piracy levels. As a nation’s GDP/ capita rises piracy levels fall. Professor Domon also compared Latin America’s GDP/ capita and piracy levels to Asia’s, which follows a similar trend—the higher GDP/ capita results in lower piracy levels. The next presenter, Dr. Quach Thu Nguyet, former director of Tre Publishing House, presented an expert’s view on copyright laws and how they are actually implemented in Vietnam today. Despite great strides in the past few years like Tre Publishing House being the exclusive publisher of Harry Potter books, there is still enormous levels of copyright infringement and at high cost to those who are actually following the rules. The third presenter is a journalist at Tuoi Tre Newspaper, Mr. Le Hoang, who has not directly worked in the field of copyright law, but is someone who deals with the trials and tribulations of copyright infringement everyday as a journalist from covering stories on copyright infringement to experiencing his own work being stolen and used by other newspapers. Mr. Hoang carefully explained some of his own observations in the field of journalism. He mentioned despite great strides in copyright enforcement, for example, the famous singer, My Tam largely protecting her own work and the revenue of the Committee on Copyright Right Protection increasing from 15 billion VND in 2008 to 23 billion VND in 2009. However, there are still pervasive issues that block Vietnam from successfully implementing copyright laws like if a consumer in Vietnam would like to buy a copyrighted DVD it is close to impossible. The final presentation was given by a young Japanese man from JETRO who spoke fluent Vietnamese, Mr. Satoshi Kitajima. Mr. Kitajima presented the perspective of Japanese companies on copyright infringement and the protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Vietnam. There are approximately 1500 Japanese business currently in Vietnam and about 10% experience copyright infringement, of those 10% that experience copyright infringement about 80% don’t take action to sue or pursue the perpetrators because of the lack of legal structure and ability to implement enforcement in Vietnam.

At the end of this successful conference was a heated discussion from the audience about Vietnam’s legal framework, lack of implementation of laws, and the progress Vietnam has made in the past few years. Overall, it was a very healthy debate and there was much gained from everyone’s presentation and the audience’s comments on the different presentations. Vietnam still has a lot of work to do in regards to copyright law to become an environment where one’s work and a company’s trademark can be safely protected, however Vietnam has made great strides in the right direction to that goal.

Oliver, Fulbright researcher

See further articles at:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1436155

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