In the digital environment, the convenience of accessing information has enabled the copying, dissemination, and illegal exploitation of creative products to take place rapidly and on an increasingly large scale. From seemingly small-scale acts, many activities have developed into illegal content business networks, generating significant revenue.
Enforcement practice in 2026 shows that competent agencies are shifting strongly from communication and reminders to detecting, investigating and handling organised copyright infringements carried out for commercial purposes.
In mid-May 2026, the Ministry of Public Security’s Investigation Police Agency decided to initiate five criminal cases on charges of infringing copyright and related rights under Article 225 of the Penal Code. The cases involved the exploitation and use of music content at several enterprises, units, and performance centres. This is one of the most notable enforcement campaigns concerning copyright and related rights this year.
The initiation of these cases shows that legal boundaries need to be more clearly recognised. Works, sound recordings, video recordings, and performances are not free resources simply because they can be easily found on the internet. When used for business purposes, their exploitation must be based on lawful rights and agreements that comply with legal regulations.
Notably, data from the Investigation Police Department for Corruption, Economic and Smuggling Crimes (C03) under the Ministry of Public Security shows that from May 7 to June 19, 2026, the economic police initiated 90 criminal cases involving 142 defendants for intellectual property-related offences. Of these, 10 cases, with a total of 43 defendants, were initiated on charges of infringing copyright and related rights under Article 225 of the Penal Code; 58 cases, with 71 defendants, involved infringement of industrial property rights; and 22 cases, with 28 defendants, involved the production and trading of counterfeit goods. During the same period, competent forces handled 236 administrative cases, with total fines of 2.3 billion VND, infringing goods valued at 12 billion VND, and total assets seized and recovered amounting to 94 billion VND.
These are results in the fight against intellectual property-related crimes in general, in which copyright and related rights form an important group, rather than all 90 cases being copyright violations. They also show the growing attention being paid to this field.
The digital space is fundamentally changing how copyright is infringed. In the past, illegal copying and distribution were often linked to a specific individual or establishment; today, they can involve entire systems of websites, accounts, servers, advertising networks, and money flows.
A case initiated by the Ministry of Public Security in early July 2026 is a typical example. The group involved operated more than 100 websites, illegally posted more than 26,000 copyrighted films, and earned illicit profits worth hundreds of billions of VND from online advertising.
The scale of the case shows that behind a website offering free films may lie not merely an act of content sharing, but a business model in which other people’s creative products are used to attract traffic and generate advertising revenue.
This is also one of the problems that makes copyright enforcement in the digital environment more complex. According to the Copyright Office of Viet Nam, many infringing websites place their servers overseas, use international domain names and regularly change access addresses to evade handling. In some cases, they also automatically copy content from lawful platforms, using technology to modify images, sound, or formats in an effort to bypass identification tools.
Faced with this reality, simply requesting the removal of one infringing link will hardly address the problem at its root. It is necessary to identify the entities behind the infringement, their operating methods, revenue sources, advertising systems, and related links. Thus, the fight against copyright infringement is shifting from handling individual products to dealing with illegal content distribution systems.
In addition to the fields of cinema and music, which are frequently mentioned in relation to copyright infringement, e-books and software show that the scope of the problem is much broader.
In Da Nang, the police initiated two criminal cases and detained three defendants in connection with the illegal business of e-books, with total illicit profits of more than 1.5 billion VND. One case was determined to have involved the creation of 784 English-language e-book sets, which were sold to more than 5,000 customers, earning around 1 billion VND.
The case shows that e-books have characteristics that increase the risk of copyright infringement because they are easy to copy, store, and disseminate, and can reach customers on a wide scale without a traditional distribution system.
From February 15, 2026, Government Decree No. 341/2025/ND-CP on administrative penalties for violations of copyright and related rights took effect. The decree comprises four chapters and 65 articles, regulating violations, forms of penalty, remedial measures, and sanctioning authority. The maximum fine in this field is 250 million VND for individuals and 500 million VND for organisations.
The improvement of penalty regulations is important in the context of increasingly diverse forms of exploiting works. On May 5, 2026, Deputy Prime Minister Ho Quoc Dung signed Official Dispatch No. 38/CD-TTg, requesting competent forces to launch a nationwide campaign from May 7 to May 30, 2026, focusing on combating, preventing, and handling acts of intellectual property infringement in the spirit of “no prohibited zones, no exceptions.”
The dispatch requested the Ministry of Public Security to focus on verifying, investigating and initiating several serious cases of copyright and related rights infringement, while dismantling online copyright-infringing websites with large traffic volumes.
Implementing this direction, the Ministry of Public Security launched a peak campaign across the entire force from May 7 to August 7, 2026. Market management forces also recorded the handling of 1,520 intellectual property violations, up 370.6% compared with the same period last year and nearly four times higher than the assigned target. Reality shows a notable shift: intellectual property enforcement is being placed within an intersectoral campaign, rather than being only the separate task of specialised copyright agencies.
This approach was also raised at a workshop titled “Protecting intellectual property rights in the digital environment — Removing bottlenecks, developing digital culture”, which was recently organised by Nhan Dan Newspaper. Opinions at the workshop emphasised the need to shift from isolated handling to a proactive governance mechanism based on identification, data, and technology, so that intellectual property rights can truly become infrastructure for creativity and development.
In Japan, the copyright management agency has implemented a pilot project using AI to detect and analyse copyright-infringing websites. The system registers data on works requiring protection, automatically collects data, and compares it to detect infringing content. Trial results achieved an accuracy rate of 83.6-94%.
In late July 2026, Viet Nam and Japan exchanged experience in copyright enforcement in the digital environment. This is a necessary direction for cooperation, as many current infringements involve cross-border factors, while a website may place its server in one country, use a domain name in another, and serve users in many markets.
At the same time, Viet Nam is continuing to improve policies in response to new issues posed by artificial intelligence. Decree No. 134/2026/ND-CP, dated April 6, 2026, added provisions on cases where objects of copyright and related rights are created using AI systems. This is a necessary adjustment amid the rapid development of generative technology.
The ultimate goal of copyright enforcement is not simply to create deterrent cases. More importantly, from each case, social awareness is raised; from each copyright payment collected properly, creators gain additional resources to continue creating; and from each enterprise complying with the law, the content market gains another responsible actor.
When creative rights are respected from the creation of a work to its use, exploitation and distribution, copyright will no longer be seen as a barrier to access to culture. It is the legal infrastructure and trust needed for creativity to be protected, investment to be encouraged, and cultural industries to develop sustainably.
