In brief
Vietnam may soon move its copyright rules into a standalone law for the first time.
On 15 October 2026, the newly renamed Cultural Industries and Copyright Office under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism held a national conference to review the practical implementation of the copyright and related rights provisions of Vietnam's IP Law and its implementing regulations during 2021-2026. The review found that the current framework is struggling to keep pace with AI, digital technologies, and cross-border digital platforms. In response, policymakers proposed developing a standalone Copyright Law.
For businesses that create, license, distribute, or host content in Vietnam, these proposals offer an early look at how the rules on AI training, digital licensing, and online enforcement may evolve, and an opportunity to prepare before those rules take shape.
Key takeaways
- A standalone Copyright Law is on the table: Following its review of the IP Law's copyright and related rights provisions, Vietnam is considering a dedicated law for these rights.
- Copyright is gaining commercial importance: More than 61,000 registration certificates were issued, and enforcement activity continued to grow, reflecting greater recognition of copyright and related rights as valuable legal and commercial assets.
- Key challenges are well documented: The review highlighted recurring difficulties with authorship and ownership, exceptions and limitations, licensing, collective rights management, copyright databases, damages assessments, and online enforcement.
- AI and digital enforcement are central to reform: Future reforms are expected to clarify authorship and ownership, including for AI-assisted works; address the use of copyrighted works and data for AI training; modernize licensing; strengthen collective rights management; and improve digital enforcement.
- Now is the time to prepare and engage: Businesses in content-intensive industries, media, technology, and digital platforms should monitor developments, review their rights, and consider contributing to the policy process while the framework is still taking shape.
In more detail
1. Key implementation results: 2021 through the first half of 2026
- Registration of copyright and related rights: Registration activity continued to grow during the review period. The Cultural Industries and Copyright Office issued 61,003 registration certificates: 60,622 for copyright and 381 for related rights.
- Copyright enforcement: Vietnam continued to strengthen enforcement through administrative sanctions, website blocking, and criminal proceedings. Authorities handled 159 administrative cases and imposed fines totaling more than VND 3.8 billion (approximately USD 150,000). They also requested the removal or blocking of 7,332 infringing websites and prosecuted 25 criminal cases involving more than 130 defendants and accused persons.
2. Key challenges
Structural limitations of the IP Law
- Copyright and related rights differ fundamentally from industrial property and plant variety rights in how they arise, are used commercially, and are enforced. Yet all three categories are governed by a single statute: the IP Law. This structure may no longer adequately reflect the distinct nature of copyright and related rights and has become increasingly difficult for creators, businesses, and rights holders to navigate.
Challenges within the current copyright and related rights framework
- Ownership and authorship: Determining authorship, ownership, and the scope of rights remains challenging for collaborative, commissioned, employee-created, and publicly funded works, as well as works created, stored, and used in digital environments. Resolving these issues often depends on contracts, rights transfers, and supporting evidence. AI-assisted creations raise further questions about how much human creative input is needed for protection.
- Copyright exceptions and limitations: Applying existing exceptions and limitations is increasingly complex in digital environments. Content sharing, digitization, and user-generated content often require a case-by-case assessment to determine whether authorization is needed. Similar questions arise over the use of copyrighted works and data for AI training and development.
- Copyright commercialization and licensing: Existing frameworks have not always kept pace with changing business models. A single work may be used simultaneously in newspapers, radio and television broadcasts, digital platforms, over-the-top (OTT) services, video-on-demand (VOD) services, and social media. This creates challenges in defining license scope, royalties, and revenue-sharing arrangements.
- Copyright database: Effective rights management increasingly relies on ownership records, licensing information, usage data, and electronic evidence. A unified system for identifying and managing rights and sharing data is not yet fully developed. This makes it difficult to verify ownership, licensing status, and other information needed to use rights commercially.
- Collective copyright management: Obtaining licenses can be complex when multiple rights holders, collective management organizations, and other intermediaries are involved. Reliable information on ownership, authorization, licensing status, and royalty arrangements is not always readily available.
- Assessing damages and valuing infringed rights: Assessing damages remains difficult, particularly online, where infringement may affect revenue, profits, and other economic interests at the same time. The review also raised concerns that the current statutory damages cap of VND 1 billion, applicable when damages cannot be quantified, may be inadequate for large-scale online and cross-border infringement.
- Online enforcement: Copyright infringement can spread rapidly through livestreaming, content sharing, reuploading, and other digital activities across platforms and jurisdictions. Existing enforcement mechanisms often struggle to keep pace, particularly when it comes to notice-and-takedown procedures, platform responsibilities, and cross-border enforcement.
Practical implementation and enforcement challenges
- Copyright and related rights administration and enforcement continue to face technical, operational, and resource constraints, particularly online. Coordination and information sharing among authorities and stakeholders are not always seamless. Some localities also lack sufficient specialized personnel, technical tools, and digital monitoring capabilities.
3. Proposed direction for a standalone Copyright Law
The proposed standalone Copyright Law is expected to provide a more specialized, coherent, and adaptable framework for copyright and related rights, with a focus on the following areas:
- Clarifying ownership, authorship, and the scope of protection: Reforms are expected to clarify authorship and ownership of rights in commissioned, employee-created, and publicly funded works, as well as the treatment of AI-assisted creations.
- Refining copyright exceptions and limitations: Reforms are expected to clarify the scope of existing exceptions and the use of copyrighted works and data for AI research, training, and development.
- Modernizing commercialization and licensing frameworks: Updated rules would better reflect evolving business models, including royalty payments, revenue-sharing arrangements, and the use of copyright assets in commercial and financial transactions.
- Improving collective rights management: Reforms would focus on collective and one-stop licensing models, greater transparency in royalty collection and distribution, and technology-enabled rights management.
- Developing rights information systems and electronic evidence frameworks: Greater emphasis would be placed on integrated systems that support the full life cycle of rights, from creation, registration, and transfer to authorization, licensing, commercial use, and royalty payments. Reforms would also focus on rights identification systems, digital databases, data-sharing mechanisms, metadata standards, and electronic evidence, while preserving the principle that copyright protection does not depend on registration.
- Strengthening online enforcement: Proposed reforms envision stronger tools to address digital and cross-border infringement, including clearer platform responsibilities, notice-and-takedown procedures, preservation of electronic evidence, and improved approaches to damages and remedies.
Conclusion
A standalone Copyright Law would mark a significant step in the development of Vietnam's copyright framework. Although the proposals are still at an early stage, they signal a clear focus on AI, digital content distribution, rights management, and online enforcement – areas central to many digital business models. Rights holders, content creators, technology companies, and digital platforms that review their rights and contracting practices early will be better positioned to manage risks and seize opportunities as the framework takes shape.
We will continue to monitor developments and would be pleased to discuss what they may mean for your business.
* * * * *
Hoa Tran, Partner, and Anh Thu Nguyen, Associate, have co-authored this legal update.
© 2026 BMVN International LLC. All rights reserved. BMVN International LLC is in strategic alliance with Baker & McKenzie (Vietnam) Ltd., a member firm of Baker & McKenzie International, a global law firm with member law firms around the world. In accordance with the common terminology used in professional service organizations, reference to a "partner" means a person who is a partner, or equivalent, in such a law firm. Similarly, reference to an "office" means an office of any such law firm. This may qualify as "Attorney Advertising" requiring notice in some jurisdictions. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.