Thanks to tireless effort from Nha Nam culture and communication JSC, some best seller books have been published and launched to the Vietnamese market. However, while Nha Nam and other publishing houses tried to obtain copyright license for their publication of valued books, infringers benefit from selling pirated copies thereof. The fighting against pirated books faces many difficulties, and the following interview with Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Yen, Head of copyright department of Nha Nam JSC focuses on this issue.

 

 

Copyright negotiation for publication of a foreign book in Viet Nam is not an easy task. The right holders always look into Vietnamese book market, then they raise many questions as to how to perform the contract, presentation style, paper quality, color printing and sometime, checking and approval of the translation version. Right holders are scared of Chinese market because the pirated market there is out of control. South East Asia is also in the “black list” of copyright infringement and Viet Nam is in the list.

 

A copyright agreement for publication of a foreign book is often a long agreement with a lot of provisions concerning rights and obligations of both parties. The number of copies should be indicated, and additional copies will required further license. License agreements are generally “flexible” and based on many factors such as the publishing house, the “hot” level of the book…, the licensee will pay a deposit, and then the right holder will receive a certain percentage from the total sale of the book. As such, the more copies sold to the market, the more royalty the right holder will receive. On the contrary, if pirated books are overwhelming, then the right holder only receive the deposit, while the infringers enjoy the rest.

 

During negotiation, we show the copyright holder the facts that in Viet Nam, book market is immature, with a limited number of readers. In addition, publishing houses suffered from grave problem of pirated books. For these reasons, in many cases, the right holders agreed to our proposal.

 

Generally, the copyright royalty for the use of a foreign book is much higher than that of a domestic book, but this royalty rate is still very low in compare with that in other countries including China or Korea. Given the difficulties of Vietnamese book market, the right holders often agreed to a special royalty policy for Viet Nam and accepted a nominal royalty of some US$ thousands, a very low rate in compare with some US$ millions for the use of the same works in other countries.

 

Some books translated and published by Nha Nam are welcomed by the readers, could you disclose some of the works which Nha Nam involved in copyright negotiation, translation and publication.

 

We often translate French, English and US books. Naturally, our priority is typical authors and their works, including such best sellers as those of Marc Levy, Gullaume Musso (France), Muracami (Japan) or Sophie Kinsella (England)…For a book to be warmly welcomed by the readers, on the one hand, we have to carefully chose a "hot book" and on the other hand, we must pay attention to translation phase, which is not easy for a literary work. We now have a team of qualified translators, who are very important for the success of a book published in Vietnamese language.

 

 

Copyright of printed matters are diversed, and we only focus on the translation and publication of a foreign book in Vietnamese language worldwide. First license often last for 5 or 7 years. It takes years for preparation, translation and publication of a book, but with a "hot" book, the infringers only needs some days for their pirated copies to be available to the market. If we are unable to fight piracy, the royalty collected for the right holder will be very limited and this is a great obstacle for us to obtain future licenses.

 

Pirated books can be in the form of hard copies or soft copies. Illegal soft copies are collected as book clubs and draw a large number of online readers. Many infringers are ignorant of copyright law, they may purchase a book, and then re-type or scan the book and upload it to an online library. To deal with this type of infringers, we often send warning messages to them and inform them of our rights and ask them to immediately stop the infringing acts.

 

Nha Nam also runs regular screening work in order to locate new pirated books. When a new pirated copy is found, we send a sample to Culture Police (PA25) and Market Management Bureau for their further enforcement activities. In addition, we organize some exhibitions of pirated books to give more information to the readers and to send a warning message to the infringers.

 

Although the competent authorities carried out regular raids against piracy, fighting unauthorized use and distribution of a work in digital environment is still a difficult task. Recently, a representative of Marc Levy inform us of the distribution of the author’s book on V.point web site and wonder whether we allow this website to use the book.

 

 

To date, we have two Korean works. One is "I have the rights to destroy myself", and the other is "Please, look after Mom". These two books are quite “hot” in Korea, but are not easy to translate. In the initial negotiation, our Korean partners ask for a high deposit rate, but after some direct meeting and discussion, they understand Vietnamese situation and agreed to a reasonable rate. Both authors are happy that their works will be available in Vietnam.

 

korea copyright commission

Vietnam correspondent