Copyright center criticized for neglecting copyright protection

 The Vietnam Center for Protecting Music Copyright (VCPMC) is criticized for only collecting fees but ignoring the protection of the integrity of music works. 

 

Singer Thanh Thuy (photo) said when she recorded the song “Huong Tham,” she got the lyric from a music book bought from a bookstore. She then found out that the lyric in this book is inaccurate.  

Copyright in Vietnam is specified in the 2005 Civil Code and the Law on Intellectual Property. The Government also issued Decree 100/NDCP/2006 to guide the implementation of some articles of the Civil Code and the Law on Intellectual Property on copyright and related rights. 

Accordingly, the author has the right to protect the integrity of his work and that right is protected by the State. But in fact, these provisions have not been implemented seriously and the authorities have not fulfilled their responsibilities.

Copyright protection center just focuses on fee collection

According to official data, annually the VCPMC collects tens of billions dong from the copyright fees. Musician Pho Duc Phuong, the center’s director affirmed that the protection of legitimate interests of musician’s creation is the center’s responsibility and goal. But when it comes to the responsibility of this center, musicians have complained that the center has only focused on collecting copyright fees, not protecting the integrity of their works, including the lyrics.

Musician Quoc Dung says that the center is currently interested in only two things: ensuring the song titles and the author names to be correct and they do not care whether the lyrics are wrong or not. 

Composer Phu Quang says: "There are no provisions on handling singers who forget or make up the lyrics. There is also no agency that stands out for this task. I do not expect the Copyright Protection Center’s intervention or any state agency’s protection of my interest because it seems too far-fetched."

“I can’t count how many times I have voiced about this problem but I’ve tried in vain. Nothing has changed. The copyright center only cares how to collect as much money from authors as they can while they do not care about whether songs are performed correctly or not,” says senior songwriter Phan Huynh Dieu.

Referring to this issue, musician Pho Duc Phuong says: "Singers who sing the wrong lyrics is a violation of law and the personal rights of the authors of the songs. Therefore, the authors have the right to complain to reclaim their interests." 

However, musicians say they do not know where to complain to while the copyright center, in their mind, just collects money, as much as possible and has no duty to deal with this.

The most accurate music documents needed

In fact, not every singer has the opportunity to directly see the musicians to get the original text and thoroughly find out the meaning of each word in the lyrics so singing inaccurately is something unavoidable.

Most singers get music documents from music books sold at bookstores. Singer Thanh Thuy said when she recorded the song “Huong Tham,” she got the lyric from a music book bought from a bookstore. She then found out that the lyric in this book is inaccurate.

Many singers say that if they sing inaccurately, it occurs for old songs because it is really hard to find the most precise music documents. There are a lot of music sources and singers do not know which one is reliable. They often take lyrics from music books sold in book shops. But these books also contain wrong lyrics.

This fact shows the need to have a reliable source of songs with the correct and the most complete lyrics, from which people can use without being afraid of singing inaccurately. This is the desire of most singers and songwriters. 

The copyright center is only responsible for keeping original songs sent by musicians as its own archive to use as evidence in copyright disputes. Meanwhile singers cannot find out the original lyrics of songs to perform them accurately. 

Senior musician Phan Huynh says that he has asked relevant agencies to take measures to deal with this fact for many times but they have not had any feedback.

 

"I think the Vietnam Musicians' Association, the provincial music associations should have an official address to archive music documents with the most accurate lyrics to serve people," says singer Thanh Thuy. 

Songwriter, Meritorious Artist The Hien also wants his original songs to be stored by any agency so singers can have them easily in case they cannot contact the author. Who will do it? It must be no one else but the responsible agencies such as the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of provinces, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Vietnam Musicians’ Association, the local music associations and the Vietnam Music Copyrights Protection Center, which should have been doing this duty for a long time rather than waiting until it is requested.

Karaoke lyrics – big problem

Karaoke lyrics are the most wrong. If a singer sings inaccurately on the stage, they audience can listen and then forget but on recording devices like karaoke, the consequence is incalculable. 

When wrong lyrics are sang repeatedly by many people, the wrong lyrics become popular and become “accurate” while the original lyrics are thought by many people to be wrong.

The wrong karaoke lyrics come from the carelessness of karaoke disk producers and the carelessness of the censorship.

NLD