POPs, YouTube’s representative in Vietnam, stressed at a press conference on May 30 that the more the Vietnamese music video clips are shared on YouTube, the more profits their owners gain from the ads revenues.
According to Nguyen Huu Vinh Hanh, from POPs, since August 2011, her company has signed YouTube copyright ownership contracts with over 100 local singers and artists, who are mostly popular names on the local digital music market, such as My Tam, Dam Vinh Hung, Van Mai Huong and Tuan Hung.
The contract signing enables the artists to get a better check on their songs’ permissibility for use, safeguard their reputation and earn profits, Hanh noted.
Users can use copyrighted content on YouTube for free, but YouTube pays fees to the artists by sharing with them revenues from ads on the website.
However, Hanh declined to spell out the profit sharing ratio between YouTube and the artists. Artists in the world typically receive 7-12% of the profits YouTube earns.
She also admitted that neither YouTube nor her company can do anything to keep check on or stop users from purposefully downloading the clips on YouTube and then uploading them onto other websites for commercial purposes.
In November 1, 2012, in an effort to combat music copyright violations in the country, seven online music websites started charging users for downloading songs from the Recording Industry Association of Vietnam’s 100 albums. However, the complicated payment methods, as well as the fact that all remaining songs that aren’t on RIAV’s albums are still available for free, have bewildered users.