Currently, violations of copyright and related rights are becoming more and more popular. This raises the issue that the authors, the copyright holders must register the copyright in order to resist infringement acts and protect their copyright in the most legal way. However, there are still many subjects who have not yet realized the importance of copyright registration, AMI will explain why it is necessary to register copyright through the following article.
What’s copyright?
Copyright is defined in Clause 2, Article 4 of the Law on Intellectual Property 2005 (amended in 2009) meaning rights of organizations and individuals to works they have created or own. The registration of copyright means the filing of applications and enclosed dossiers by authors, copyright holders with the competent state agencies for recording of information on authors, works, copyright holders.
Why must register copyright?
Vietnamese law stipulates that the filing of applications for grant of certificates of registered copyright is not a compulsory formality for enjoyment of copyright. However, in the context of copyright infringement becomes popular with many forms of complex infringement such as music piracy, arbitrarily cropping and circulating works on the market without the author’s consent, arbitrarily distributing content of artworks on the internet,… Especially in the era of information technology as today, the reality of copyright infringement has become more and more widespread although authorities have used many methods of deterrence.
To prevent copyright infringement, more importantly, the authors and copyright holders need to take measures to protect themselves, one of which is the registration of copyright. So what does copyright registration mean?
Firstly, copyright registration is significant in proving ownership of the work of the author, holder. Although the law stipulates that copyright shall arise at the moment when a work is created and fixed in a certain material form, irrespective of its content, quality, presentation, means of fixation, language and whether or not it has been published or registered. However, the author, holder is granted a Certificate of Copyright Registration will prove the right to own the work legally through the information about the work, the author, the holder of the work and the registration date is recorded on the Certificate.
Secondly, copyright registration is an important basis for facilitating the author and owner in the process of exploiting the work, while combating copyright infringement. Ownership of copyright registration certificates will make it easier for authors and holders to transfer use rights of works. As we mentioned above, the current status of copyright infringement is very common, if the author, holder has copyright registration, the handling of infringement is also more effective.
Thirdly, the copyright registration helps authors and owners not to prove that copyright belongs to them upon disputes, unless rebutting proofs are adduced. The certificate of copyright registration will be considered as legal evidence to prove the copyright of work’s holder, in the event of a dispute, the author or holder of the Certificate will not have proving obligation. Conversely, in case of non-registration, when a dispute arises, the author or holder of the work must have evidence to prove that the work is created or owned by them. The proof is often complicated and takes a lot of time because the author and the holder must prepare a lot of relevant evidence and documents.
Therefore, the copyright registration is extremely practical, if customers want to register copyright, please contact AMI immediately for our fastest consultation.
