Vietnam - Copyright Agreement with the United States

Newsletters and Bulletins / December 1997 / Vietnam

The United States and Vietnam have signed a bilateral copyright agreement obligating the signatories to afford equal protection under their respective copyright laws to works of the other's authors first published in one of the contracting states. The most important provisions of the agreement are as follows:

1) protection is extended to works of nationals and domiciliaries of the contracting states;

2) protected works include literary, musical, dramatic and choreographic works, motion pictures and other audiovisual works; and

3) copyright owners are afforded a right to authorize or prohibit the public performance of certain works.

Under the agreement, Vietnam will also implement enforcement measures that include:

1) civil enforcement provisions, including injunctive relief and damages, as well as seizure and destruction of infringing goods and their means of production;

2) criminal penalties, including fines and imprisonment for copyright infringement on a commercial scale; and

3) effective customs procedures.

The agreement is an important step for reciprocal protection of United States and Vietnamese copyrights in the contracting states, since Vietnam is not a member of either the Berne Convention for the Protection of Artistic and Literary Works or the Universal Copyright Convention.

December 1997 Index

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