LookAtVietnam – In an increasingly competitive pop music industry, many Vietnamese singers are contracting with composers to give them exclusive rights to new songs.

Your song: Singer Lam Truong during a recent performance. In an increasingly competitive pop music industry, many Vietnamese singers are contracting with composers to give them exclusive rights to new songs.

But multiple cover versions of the same songs tended to dissipate a song’s market share, and many singer’s managers became cannier about the business of pop. They increasing sought original songs that their clients could record, allowing them to become associated with their names and their voices.

Hoang Tuan, the manager of popular singer Dan Truong, also contracted with lyricists to write Vietnamese lyrics to Chinese songs that would then be performed exclusively by Truong.

“No one pours his money into a song unless it is his song exclusively, ensuring he benefits when it becomes a hit,” said Tuan, who spent nearly VND100 million (US$5,300) to buy the song My Grandmother for Truong. The song went on to win the Lan Song Xanh Music Award for 2007.

Recognising the commercial value of songs was a sign of the growing maturity and professionalism of the nation’s entertainment industry, said composer Minh Vy.

What composers have yet to do in Viet Nam is figure out a way to profit from the distribution of many new hit songs on the internet.

Many popular songs are downloaded millions of times.

With more composers writing songs to orders, some fans say the artistic quality of the compositions has declined from pop music’s “golden age”. To manufacture a hit, many musicians simply imitate the melody and arrangements of foreign songs, simply adding new lyrics.

And some singers have ignored the exclusive rights another singer may have obtained to a song, recording and performing the tune anyway.

Composers themselves want their songs to be sung by as many singers as possible, giving the songs more chances to reach audiences and become popular or a “hit”, said composer Minh Khang.

As Viet Nam joins international conventions on copyright, an opportunity looms to earn income from royalties, making it more profitable if a song is widely recorded, not simply the property of a single performer.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News