RIAV, which represents 60 music production companies nationwide, held a press briefing Monday in Ho Chi Minh City to announce the lawsuit.

“It [the lawsuit] is for our members’ benefit,” said RIAV’s Standing Vice Chairwoman Truong Thi Thu Dung. “But we also want to issue a warning against others who are using our products illegally.”

Accusations

“Nokia Vietnam launched a promotion by giving out cards that could be used to download free music at the website www.mp3.nhacso.net/nokia,” Dung said.

“Almost all 10,446 music files on the website [run by FPT Online JSC] are property of RIAV or composers and singers who have authorized us to hold the copyrights.

“We had asked Nokia Vietnam and authorities of www.nhacso.net, the umbrella website of www.mp3.nhacso.net/nokia to solve the copyright problem but they have either been reluctant, or dismissive,” she said.

Dung also accused IPTV – FPT Telecom’s internet television service – of using RIAV’s records and images without paying due fees.

She said IPTV had been “uncooperative” in payment.

She said after RIAV announced the lawsuit, Nokia Vietnam closed its links to free music downloads amid the ongoing promotion campaign.

“However, IPTV continued using RIAV’s products without any explanation,” she said.

Director of RIAV’s Ben Thanh Audio-Video from HCMC, Huynh Tiet, said he found a lot of his company’s music being used without permission or payment by www.nhacso.net.

“We have never signed any contract with the website www.nhacso.net to authorize them to sell the products to a third party,” he said.

“The authorized music now could be downloaded for free from the internet,“ he said. “Production companies have faced enough difficulties from piracy already.”

Experts say

“Nokia Vietnam and IPTV have broken the Law on Intellectual Property Rights,” said lawyer Nguyen Van Hau from HCMC.

“According to the law, which took effect in July 2006, an individual or an organization might use a copyrightedproduct without asking for permission but they are required to pay for the copyright,” he said.

“All users of music products for business purposes have to pay for the copyright,” said Dinh Trung Can, director of the Vietnam Center for Protection of Music Copyright’s southern office. “I think RIAV has enough of a case to file a lawsuit against Nokia Vietnam and IPTV.”

Tip of the iceberg

In June, more than 370 artists and artists’ relatives signed a requisition demanding that TV and radio stations and relevant agencies pay copyright fees to broadcast songs.

The Vietnam Center for Protection of Music Copyright (VCPMC) said 371 living artists and the families of late-songwriters had signed the over 50-page document compiled by the center.

The artists said the royalties of VND10,000 (US$0.60) per song were very low, but many stations, including Voice of Vietnam (VOV) and Vietnam Multimedia Corporation (VTC), had ignored the fees despite several reminders.

Even cable TV stations, which earn large amounts of money from advertisements, did not pay copyright fees to artists, the document said.

In March, relatives of Trinh Cong Son, Vietnam’s most beloved composer, called for back-royalties to be paid.

In a earlier statement, Trinh Vinh Trinh, Son’s sister, asked venue-owners to pay VND300,000 (US$19) for each time any one of Son’s songs had been performed on their stages since July 2006, when the Law on Intellectual Property Rights took effect in Vietnam.

Trinh, on behalf of Son’s family members, said the demand had been prompted by the fact that royalty payments had been virtually ignored since the law went into effect almost two years earlier.

Source: TN, Agencies