WHO IS THE TRUE AUTHOR OF “GANH ME”?
In recent days, copyright issues have heated up the Vietnamese music industry. The incident occurred related to a copyright dispute over the lyrics of "Ganh me" - in a "extremely popular" movie - "Lat mat 4: Nha co khach" was released in late April of 2019, between musician Quach Beem (Doan Dong Duc) and poet Truong Minh Nhat. More specific about the incident as reported by Tuoi Tre Newspaper:
On 23/10/2019, a Facebook account named Truong Minh Nhat spoke up and confirmed that the poem "Ganh me" was composed by him and was "plagialize" by musician Quach Beem (Doan Dong Duc) into a song with the same name. Moreover, Mr. Nhat continued to share his handwritten notes with musician Quach Beem on 11/10/2019 about the male musician's desire to collaborate with him in the music product "Ganh me 2" on social networks, in his view this is an act to avoid the scandalous plagiarism in the previous song "Ganh me". At the same time, he requested musician Doan Dong Duc to correct all publications with the song "Ganh me" on all the media where Mr. Duc published his song and personal page according to the truth.
Facing the accusation of Mr. Truong Minh Nhat, musician Quach Beem said that the song "Ganh me" was composed and signed on 25/10/2013 by the Agency for Copyright of Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and he has all the legal papers of copyright of the product. Besides, the musician said that Truong Minh Nhat slandered him and the screenshot on Facebook on 31/07/2014 was to take the lyrics of the musician and then write his poem. At the same time, he asked Mr. Nhat to provide legal evidence of copyright but he could not provide it. Moreover, the musician also accused him of committing insults, harassment and blackmail. However, according to the information found on the Agency for Copyright’s website, the work "Ganh me" was only registered on 26/03/2019, before the movie "Lat mat 4: Nha co khach" was published soon after
After the controversy on social networks, both sides informed that they will bring the matter to the competent authorities to resolve. So in the end who can be the true author of "Ganh me"? Let DTD consider this incident from a legal perspective:
Clause 2, Article 1 of the Law on Intellectual Property was amended and supplemented in 2009 provides: “ Work means a creation of the mind in the literary, artistic or scientific domain, whatever may be the mode or form of its expression.”
In addition, Clause 1, Article 6 of the Law on Intellectual Property provides the grounds for arising and establishing intellectual property rights as follows: “Copyright shall arise at the moment a work is created and fixed in a certain material form, irrespective of its content, quality, form, mode and language and irrespective of whether or not such work has been published or registered.”
From the above grounds, the creator of a literary work in a certain material form, irrespective of the content, quality, form and language means, published or unpublished, registered or unregistered, all generate copyright in that work.
On the other hand, literary works are one of the types of copyright protected in Article 14 of the Law on Intellectual Property. The term of protection of copyright in a literary work is the lifetime of the author and 50 years after the author's death (Article 27 of the Law on Intellectual Property). Therefore, within the time limit of copyright protection for the work, the author of that work must carry out the procedures for copyright protection in accordance with Article 49 of the Law on Intellectual Property.
However, the procedure for registration of copyright protection is not a compulsory procedure for enjoying copyright. According to Point 1, Section III of Joint Circular No. 02/2008/TTLT-TANDTC-VKSNDTC-BVHTT & DL-BKH & CN-BTP, if parties involved in a dispute over copyright or related rights institute a lawsuit to request a court to protect their lawful rights and interests, the court shall consider the case regardless of whether or not they have registration certificates of copyright.
Thus, from the above bases, DTD make these assumptions in the dispute between musician Quach Beem and poet Truong Minh Nhat. In the event that either party files a lawsuit to Court, musician Quach Beem’s Registration Certificate of copyright will no longer be considered as a basis for proving his copyright to "Ganh me" anymore. Accordingly, the Court will consider the papers and documents given by both sides as a basis for proving that they are the creators of the lyrics for "Ganh me".
However, the above statements of DTD are based on information collected from poet Truong Minh Nhat and musician Quach Beem through social networks and related articles. Before this incident, Vietnam Television VTV participated to meet and talk with poet Truong Minh Nhat as well as musician Quach Beem. According to VTV1's sharing, in his dialogue with VTV, poet Truong Minh Nhat insisted that he wanted to clarify and end the dispute between him and musician Quach Beem about the copyright of the song. "Ganh me”. At the same time, he asked musician Quach Beem to "proofread" the poet's name on the song in all public media. As for the poet Quach Beem, there has not been any response to VTV, due to repeated contact with his manager but failed.
Before the final decision of the competent authority - the Court, all sources of information as well as the deduction were for reference only. Therefore, DTD hopes that the authorities will soon investigate and clarify the case so that they can bring "Ganh me" back to their "owner" because this work is not only a "soul" which gives a deep impression to the film "Lat mat 4: Nha co khach" but also contains affection for the mother that the true author of "Ganh me" sent into it.
