Three months after the prime minister’s instruction on scrutinising the collection of copyright royalties at restaurants, hotels and cafes was issued, the revenue of music copyright royalties in HCM City is still extremely low.

Many big hotels in HCM City don’t pay music royalties.

According to the Vietnam Centre for the Protection of Music Copyrights’ southern office, around 10-15% of firms that use music works like restaurants, hotels, karaoke bars, discotheques, night clubs, disk stores, and some websites have paid music royalties.

“We have sent dispatches several times to these firms to ask them to pay music copyright royalties, but only a few of them have paid. We have sent some firms dispatches eight times but they haven’t given any response,” said Deputy Director of the Vietnam Centre for the Protection of Music Copyrights Dinh Trung Can.

Among music users that haven’t paid copyright royalties yet are big hotels of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism and foreign hotels, such as New World Hotel, Winsor Hotel, Sofitel Hotel, Dam Sen Cultural Park, Soi Da café, An Nam café, and Saigon Rendezvous café.

Ms. Thao, the manager of Jazz café on Suong Nguyet Anh road, District 1, HCM City, said she received the Vietnam Centre for the Protection of Music Copyrights’ dispatch asking for music royalties and the two sides were negotiating a contract. However, Thao said that it is unfair that some pay royalties and many others don’t pay.

The Vietnam copyrigt centre’s Deputy Director Dinh Trung Can said the centre will experimentally collect music copyright royalties in the two provinces of Binh Thuan and Ba Ria-Vung Tau because the local authorities warmly support the centre and promised to help the centre to collect royalties.

“If this model is successful, we will expand it,” he said.

The chief inspector of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Vu Xuan Thanh, said that the ministry organised three training courses in Hanoi, Hue city and HCM City on the implementation of the prime minister’s instruction on copyright royalties. In the coming time, local governments will attack illegal disk producers and distributors, probe music-using organisations, and deal with complaints related to copyright infringement.

Thanh also said that the ministry was considering the rights of the Vietnam Recording Industry Association over recording companies. A round-table meeting between music websites and associations will be held on April 23 in HCM City to discuss this issue.

Le Tam