Copyright problems in the digital age

When Harry Potter Vol.6 first appeared in bookstoresVietNamNet Bridge – The Berne Convention, TRIPs, and other copyright agreements are helping to improve the Vietnamese publishing market, but the explosive development of the Internet is throwing new obstacles in the way of Vietnam’s effort to protect publishing copyrights.
The copyright joke
During one of the most-awaited publishing events of 2005, Youth Publishing House’s publication of Harry Potter’s Volume 6, a serious copyright problem occurred.
No sooner had Volume 6 hit bookshelves than a group of fans translated it into Vietnamese and released the translated version widely on the Internet.
This seriously affected the sales of Youth Publishing House, which had spent a great deal of time and money to buy the copyright as well as organise promotional activities.
Yet, Internet violations of copyrights were then too new a phenomenon and the publisher’s president, Quach Thu Nguyet, decided not to take any legal action.
Now, two years later, the Internet in Vietnam is fast becoming the harbour of copyright violators. Many popular works have been appearing in bookstores and on book websites simultaneously. Some examples are Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Yoshimoto Banana’s Kitchen and Goodbye Tugumi.
Immediately after being published by Nha Nam Company, they appeared at e-books.com. And despite First News’s rigorous copyright protection efforts, its recent release, Failure to Atone, is also available on the Internet.
It isn’t only translated works that have to suffer what some domestic authors consider “the copyright joke”. The copyrights of domestic products have also been blatantly violated.
Writer Nguyen Nhu Phong’s Chay An has very recently appeared at the copyright trading centre, but it is also available at thuvien-ebooks website with attractive introductions.
Famous writer and scholar Nhat Chieu and his latest short stories are suffering a similar fate. Almost all of the works by famed domestic authors are now available on the Internet.
Some authors pay much attention to copyright violations in publishing, yet remain indifferent to violations on the Internet.
Determination to crack down on violations
Youth Publishing House plans to release Harry Potter’s Volume 7, the last and the most-anticipated volume, at the end of July 2007.
According to Pham Sy Sau, who is in charge of topic exploration and copyright trading at Youth Publishing House, this year, the publisher is determined to protect its right to distribute Harry Potter Vol. 7 in Vietnam.
It will request any website posting illegally translated versions of the book to remove them or ask responsible authorities to enforce copyright laws. How successful Youth Publishing House’ efforts will be is uncertain.
This publisher’s determination shows that publishing businesses are starting to pay attention to copyright violations on the Internet though cracking down on copyright violations in general and on the Internet in particular isn’t a problem that can be solved in a short time.
(Source: SGGP)