Effective November 1, 2012, listeners of digital music in Vietnam will have to pay about VND1,000 (US$0.47) per song or a monthly subscription fee to download their favorite tunes.
According to the Recording Industry Association of Vietnam (RIAV), in the past five years, sales of music records in the country have slumped by 80 percent. Statistics from Google AD Planner also show that in Vietnam, there are more than 25 million online music listeners a month on an average.
Tran Chien Thang, Head of RIAV, commented that the situation of free downloading music onto personal computers and mobile phones was seriously affecting the recording industry of the nation.
Therefore, the agreement made between MV Corp. and six major online music distributors, namely Zing, Nhaccuatui, Nhac.vui.vn (24h), Socbay.com, Nghenhac.info, Go.vn, along with mobile network providers like Viettel, Mobifone, was enthusiastically welcomed by both song writers and music producers.
These six major online music websites possess nearly 90 percent of the market share.
The most troublesome part of the agreement, which required much negotiation, was the date that the policy would come into effect.
Phung Tien Cong, Deputy Director General of MV Corp, stated that it was high time that online music services and websites charge music listeners for downloading songs to prevent copyright violation. As the largest unit to provide music copyright in Vietnam, MV Corp strives to cooperate with related agencies in offering consumers a rich source of music with high quality and full copyright, said Cong. This action is also a reinvestment into the music industry of the country.
Moreover, online music distributors will receive their own financial benefits as well when implementing this policy from November 1, 2012.
So far, 42,000 songs have already been registered in MV Corp. The company is still trying its best to call for non-registering music writers, singers, and producers to take part in the program. However, it is supposed that not until three to four years can everything run smoothly and systematically.
The Joint Circular No.7 issued on June 19, 2012 by the Ministry of Information and Communications of Vietnam and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Vietnam about responsibilities of intermediaries in protecting copyright and other internet-related, mobile-related rights will be the legal basis to correct the uncontrollable situation of uploading and downloading music freely at the moment.
| The news about a fee for downloading songs has received an abundance of comments, both positive and negative. Some say that this is merely an unrealistic action since there are thousands of ways to get around the policy. Others say that the fee of VND1,000 per song (US$0.47) is a reasonable price, and that this is an indispensable tendency in many nations. The US government has already exercised a similar action when blocking the website Megaupload as it seriously violated copyrights and the popular website Mediafire has to monitor its contents more closely to obey the copyright policy. A member of Vozforum commented that many people in Vietnam continuously talk about fairness but refuse to obey laws of justice when required. It is also worth noticing that the quality of online music is still not very high. In order for consumers to happily open their wallet, this quality should be made better. |
