In the music industry in Vietnam today, buying and selling exclusive songs is a “phrase” that has become familiar to singers – and musicians recently. An album by a new singer must have at least about 5-7 “stars” (symbol for exclusive songs), then there is hope of finding a foothold in the market. So how is buying and selling “exclusive rights to songs” legal? Please follow VCD’s article below to understand better.
1. Exclusive purchase and sale of songs
A song is an intellectual product created by a musician using the creator’s time, effort, finance, and technical facilities, so the musician is considered the song’s author and has moral and ethical rights. property rights to the music. The author or copyright owner will exercise these rights exclusively or authorized by others.
When a song is composed by a musician, it is under the “exclusive” ownership and use of that musician and only “he” has the right to allow others to exercise property rights over the song. The above-mentioned rights of musicians will be protected by the Intellectual Property Law even if the musician does not apply for a Copyright Registration Certificate because copyright arises as soon as the song is created and recorded. expressed in a certain material form, regardless of content, quality, form, medium, language, published or unpublished, registered or unregistered.
“Buying and selling songs” is a phrase that refers to the copyright owner transferring ownership rights, the right to publish the work or allow others to publish it, and other property rights to other organizations and individuals under contract, agreed or prescribed. However, the author is not allowed to transfer moral rights including (i) naming rights; (ii) the right to have your real name or pseudonym, the right to have your name or pseudonym mentioned when the work is published or used; and (iii) the right to protect the integrity of the work.
Therefore, the musician can “sell” the property rights to the song and retain his moral rights protected by law indefinitely, leaving him only as the song’s author; and the buyer will become the copyright owner of the song. And because the buyer has “purchased for life” the song, it will have property rights protected for the musician’s lifetime and the next 50 years when the musician dies.
2. It is necessary to clearly understand and properly understand the law on the exclusive purchase and sale of songs
According to the current Intellectual Property law in Vietnam, the terms “copyright”, “song monopoly” or “copyright” do not exist, but only the term “copyright” and “rights related to copyright”.
Vietnamese law regulates the rights of authors to their works and how to transfer these rights. Therefore, when licensing exclusive rights, the parties need to clarify whether the licensing here is a “transfer of copyright” or a “transfer of rights to use copyright”. In case the author/copyright owner confirms that the exclusive sale of the song is a form of “transfer of copyright usage rights”, they must specifically determine which of their rights they license, and the scope of the copyright. How to use those rights and at what time carefully to avoid disputes arising.
When licensing exclusive rights, the parties need to clarify whether the licensing here is a “transfer of copyright” or a “transfer of rights to use copyright”. In case the author/copyright owner confirms that the exclusive sale of the song is a form of “transfer of copyright usage rights”, they must specifically determine which of their rights they license, and the scope of the copyright. How to use those rights and at what time carefully to avoid disputes arising.
Buying and selling exclusive songs is a free agreement between the musicians and singers. However, there are many different views on this. Some people will sell the song for a very high price, some will accept to buy it. But some people give songs to singers for free as long as their songs “live” with the audience. People still call it “the music market”, but even though it is a market, there are still “buy and sell” exchanges.
Buying and selling works or transferring usage rights not only takes place in the Vietnamese market but also many countries around the world. However, not everyone has the legal knowledge about the right to dispose of the above work. At the conference “Music in the Digital Environment”, representatives of organizations, management units, and publishers clarified concepts related to copyright and pointed out the risks that individuals and organizations are the owners of. Owners of works will have to face the purchase, sale, or transfer of rights to use the work in digital space. Mr. Benjamin NG – Director of Asia Pacific Region – CISAC (International Confederation of Associations of Authors and Composers) believes that optimizing revenue sources as well as ensuring the rights and interests of authors is important. , the owner of the work, musicians should register the copyright with a CMOs (CMOs stands for Collective Management Organization, meaning Collective Rights Management Organization).
In addition, recently, there was a case where a singer was in danger of having no more songs to perform because the songs that made him famous were sold exclusively by the author to another singer. This shows artists’ incomplete awareness of the law, ignorance of the legal regulations that allow such transactions, and partly because of too much trust in musicians to compose those works for them. In conclusion, VCD advises artists that if they want to perform smoothly, they should have written contracts with clear content about the rights to the work. Content such as the artist has the exclusive right to perform this song, how long is the exclusive performance period, how much money must be paid to the author after each performance… This will avoid unnecessary disputes later. and not lose your “fishing rod” especially when the work makes the
