Along with the strong development of the Internet and technology, the battle for copyright protection in cyberspace is more intense and challenging than ever. Digital content piracy is common at a high speed, with an increasingly serious, complex, and wide-ranging nature. This affects the revenue, reputation, brand of rights owners, as well as the digital transformation that the Government introduces. Therefore, copyright protection in cyberspace is an urgent issue and requires solutions to be implemented comprehensively and synchronously to achieve the highest efficiency.

On October 26, 2023, in Ho Chi Minh City, the Copyright Office, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism organized a workshop on “Exploitation and enforcement of copyright in cyberspace” (hereinafter referred to as the Workshop).

Speaking at the opening of the workshop, Mr. Tran Hoang, Director General of the Copyright Office said: “In addition to propaganda and dissemination, promoting copyright enforcement in cyberspace is an urgent requirement in the current period. To do this well, it is necessary to quickly deploy, establish a mechanism to receive requests, remove or prevent access to digital content and information that infringes copyrights and related rights, requiring intermediary service providers to invest in equipment, technical, human resources as well as reference to international experiences to operate the system effectively”.

The workshop consisted of 5 topics: Overview of legal provisions on copyright and related rights in cyberspace; Current situation of copyright exploitation and enforcement in cyberspace; Application of digital technology to the exploitation and protection of rights in cyberspace; International experience in developing tools to receive requests to remove or prevent access to digital information content that infringes copyrights, related rights of intermediary service providers and Handling copyright infringement in cyberspace.

Speaking at the workshop, Ms. Pham Thi Kim Oanh, Deputy Director General of the Copyright Office said that copyright exploitation and enforcement in cyberspace is a painful issue not only in Vietnam but also in many countries around the world. Finding suitable solutions not only ensures the enforcement of rights in cyberspace, but also promotes national economic development.

One of the copyright protection solutions is the application of digital technology, Mr. Mai Thanh Huy, representative of the Vietnam Center for Music Copyright Protection (VCPMC), said that the center has applied digital technology to monitor, exploit and manage the use of musical works in cyberspace; In addition, the center also ensures that music copyright is protected. In addition, Mr. Mai Thanh Huy also proposed a number of recommendations for the protection of copyright in cyberspace to be implemented effectively and synchronously. That is, it is necessary to complete the legal corridor for the responsibilities of intermediary service providers, according to which there should be a common mechanism or system for handling copyright infringement on platforms owned by intermediary service providers, including regulations on the issue of joint responsibility of these enterprises. Supplementing sanctions for enterprises providing specific intermediary services by Civil, Criminal and Administrative measures in legal documents for easier application and handling. Third, add specific methods for enterprises providing intermediary services to closely coordinate with collective representative organizations of copyright and related rights.

Regarding copyright infringement in the audiobook field, according to Mr. Le Hoang Thach, Director of WEWE Technology Co., Ltd., from July 2020 until now, Voiz FM has removed more than 30,000 infringing content. This shows that audiobook piracy is increasing sharply and is difficult to control, including the 3 most common forms of copyright infringement in audiobooks, which are “USB audiobook/Share link”, “YouTube channel audiobook”, “Website”.

In order to minimize and prevent audiobook piracy, Mr. Le Hoang Thach said that state management agencies need to coordinate with large platforms to prevent advertising on online platforms such as YouTube, Facebook… instead of just reporting takedowns, small. Along with that, units need to have propaganda campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of respecting and protecting intellectual property rights, as well as the negative consequences of using pirated audiobooks. At the same time, encourage consumers to use mainstream and quality audiobook sources. In addition, the Department of Publishing, Printing and Distribution should encourage publishers to actively participate in the National Digital Transformation Program, promoting the adaptation of works into official and quality audiobook formats to serve the needs of readers.

In order to support organizations and individuals to overcome difficulties in protecting copyright for cinematographic works in cyberspace, representatives of Sconnect Technology Investment and Services Co., Ltd. have offered a number of proposed solutions. Accordingly, it is necessary to improve the provisions of the law on copyright protection in the digital environment. In particular, detailed regulations on violations and sanctions applied to copyright infringements in cyberspace. In particular, clearly define the responsibilities of individuals and organizations providing Internet services in case copyrights are infringed in the digital environment. Second, improve the responsibility and sense of legal compliance of agencies, organizations and individuals, especially intermediary platforms providing services on the Internet. To do this, Vietnamese state agencies need to sanction and strictly handle acts of non-compliance with Vietnamese laws in the territory of Vietnam through intermediary platforms and parties abusing intellectual property rights.

The workshop also proposed measures to handle copyright infringement in cyberspace from the perspective of claiming compensation at a competent court in accordance with the current Law on Intellectual Property, noted lawyer Vo Trung Tin, representative of Phan Law Law Office, need to comply with the requirements and principles of the Code of Civil Procedure. For the Code of Civil Procedure, when a subject requests to initiate a lawsuit, they must prove their claim to initiate a lawsuit. Therefore, when initiating a lawsuit in court on a claim for damages, there will be 3 main issues to keep in mind. Firstly, it is necessary to prove that the plaintiff-petitioner is the intellectual property rights holder. Second, the violation of the violating unit must be proven. Third, we must prove the damage of the right holder, we must know how we damage and must show that damage.

In addition to expert opinions and domestic representative enterprises, the workshop is also an opportunity to exchange international experiences on building tools to receive requests to remove or prevent access to digital information content that infringes copyrights and related rights of intermediary service providers from Canal+ Group, Nagra Group and English Premier League Organising Committee. From there, make proposals and solutions in Vietnam and recommendations and solutions on exploitation and enforcement of copyright and related rights in cyberspace.

Regarding the piracy of the English Premier League in Vietnam, Mr. Aaron Herps, Head of Copyright Protection Department in the Asia-Pacific region, Head of the English Premier League Organizing Committee said that the copyright infringement cases of the tournament in Vietnam are very sophisticated and complicated, Behind it is organized crime such as criminal organizations specializing in betting. Now, with the tool in place, the UK has blocked thousands of domains and IPs worldwide. Mr. Aaron Herps also shared his experience to support the development of blocking processes in many countries around the world.

Talking about how to handle the above violation, according to Mr. Aaron Herps, it is necessary to use technology to protect broadcasts when working with K+ and use technologies of channel filtering, filtering information on the Internet to find content that is being broadcast illegally. Specifically, when detected, the unit will send information to service providers and social networking service providers such as Telegram to warn.

Regarding the upcoming programs, the Head of Copyright Protection Asia Pacific said that the unit will launch the campaign “Raising awareness about piracy and content theft”. The program was held for the first time in Vietnam, aiming to raise awareness of this issue. In addition, the Asia-Pacific Regional Copyright Protection Office also organizes training to raise awareness not only among social users in general, but also awareness-raising training for media agencies and state management agencies.

Discussion at the workshop on content blocking access to pirated content, Mr. Minkowski Simon, Head of Copyright Protection Department The Canal+ Group has introduced an access blocking process in France and Italy. When an infringement is detected, the rights owner and the broadcaster will first issue a notice requesting that the domain name, IP address, digital proof and block order should be specified. Competent state management agencies inspect blocking requests through its tool then communicates to the ISP. The ISP after receiving the information will process it automatically and the process ends. With this process, in 2022, the Canal+ Group in France blocked more than 1,700 domains; 200 domains removed from Google’s search engine; gsignificant number of illegal live streaming sites during the block period and 15% Internet users after suffering face the be intercept access switched to Services legal.

Meanwhile, Nagra’s technology solution focuses on tackling pirated websites that provide free listening and viewing content, passcode sharing services, and pirated internet protocol TV services. This group systematizes the process of blocking access, coordinating all parties involved to block DNS and IP of offending parties.

The seminar was even more exciting through the Q&A session of representatives from digital content creators, intermediary service providers, lawyers…. The opinions exchanged and discussed at the workshop contributed to raising awareness and awareness of law enforcement on copyright and related rights, promoting creative activities and protecting creative achievements and developing national cultural industries.

Through the workshop, the Organizing Committee wishes to further strengthen the propaganda of the provisions of the law on copyright and related rights in the digital environment for participants, in order to further raise the sense of law observance. In addition, the Organizing Committee also said that the protection of copyright in cyberspace when applying the law is very difficult, especially in the network environment, therefore, it is necessary to apply detection and prevention tools. The Copyright Office will coordinate with relevant State management agencies to develop tools to detect and handle violations in accordance with the provisions of law. At the same time, through the experience of international units and organizations… the solutions mentioned by these representatives can be applied in Vietnam in the near future.