Top offender Vietnam awakening to piracy policing as U.S. watches
HANOI - Piles of counterfeit CDs, DVDs and
computer software were back in a shop in Hanoi's tourist-heavy
Old Quarter -- just a few hours after being seized in a police raid.
"We paid a bribe to a person I know in the police station, and
they let us have it back," said Tuan, the shop owner.
An estimated 97 percent of the software on the market in
Vietnam is pirated, according to the industry trade group Business
Software Alliance. Yet the country has taken only halting steps to
address the issue, and its anti-piracy agency has no enforcement
powers.
Pressure for change is likely to grow under a new U.S. trade
pact, signed Oct. 17 by President Bush, that guarantees
protection of intellectual property and copyrights.
Tuan, who declined to give his full name, shrugged off the police
raid as a routine inconvenience that's part of doing business.
The widespread attitude that counterfeiting is a business, not a
crime, is at the heart of the difficulties facing Vu Manh Chu. As
head of the Ministry of Culture and Information's copyright
department, he is charged with curbing Vietnam's piracy rate.
Chu is the first to admit the magnitude of the problem dwarfs the
country's ability to confront it.
"Vietnam has been flooded with pirated goods of every kind," he
said. "We have some responsibilities in this. But Vietnam has a
long border, and we can't patrol it closely. It allows for easy
smuggling into the country."
Misdemeanor fines for pirating intellectual property can run from
$15 to $5,000; criminal charges bring one to three years in prison
and up to $13,000 in fines. Still, only a handful of cases are
prosecuted each year because the laws are unclear, Chu said.
With no actual enforcement powers, Chu's copyright department
is relegated to sending out warning letters to violators. This year
his department has handled about 500 letters of complaint. A
separate ministry is responsible for patents and trademarks.
When raids are conducted by other agencies, violators are usually
back in business within days, if not hours, Chu said.
Copyright infringement is a sore point for software giant
Microsoft, whose Windows and Office programs, retailing for
several hundred dollars, are sold on the street for $1 to $2.
"We're pirated at all levels -- by multinational companies,
government agencies, state-owned enterprises and retail shops,"
said Ngo Phuc Cuong, Microsoft's chief representative in Hanoi.
"They perceive that copying software is an acceptable practice.
It's an education problem."
Though Vietnam is not the sole offender, in countries like
Singapore or Malaysia, at least some efforts are made at
enforcement, he said. "Here, we don't feel protected by the law."
That, in turn, can have a chilling effect on Vietnam's own domestic
technology industry, said Ahmed Chami, Microsoft's South Asia
business development director. "If bright young Vietnamese
software entrepreneurs aren't sure that their work will be sold
instead of copied, then they won't do it."
Indeed, local software makers have complained bitterly about the
widespread use of pirated software and called on the government
to take a stronger stand.
Pham Tang Cuong, director of the SCC software company, said
he is being driven into the ground by domestic pirating. The use of
pirated software by state-owned enterprises is widespread;
violations among government agencies are even worse, Cuong
said.
It costs his company $5 to manufacture a CD-ROM, while a
state-run bookstore sells a fake copy for $1, he said.
The message seems to be getting across. Earlier this month,
Vietnam's largest Internet company, state-owned FPT, signed its
first copyright licensing agreement with Microsoft, paying an
undisclosed amount to have the software legally installed on
company computers.
For CEO Truong Gia Binh, it's a matter of self-interest.
Respecting international software copyrights is the key to ensuring
Vietnam's own fledgling software development growth, he said.
"If you don't respect the intellectual property of others, it won't be
possible to have a software industry here," he said.
Chu said he hopes the trade agreement will force Vietnam to
rework its rules on copyrights to improve compliance. But he said
there are no plans at present for the National Assembly to revise
laws regulating enforcement.
U.S. officials have promised to provide Vietnam with training and
technical help to fight piracy, but so far the FBI has held only one
training session, he said.
By Tini Tran - The Associated Press - November 3, 2001.
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