VietNamNet Bridge – After three months of investigation, police have determined that the Vietnam Center for Protecting Music Copyright (VCPMC) did not make wrong doings.



Established over ten years ago, for the first time the center was strongly protested by artists and state agencies early this year. The center was criticized to not have legal entity to collect royalty. It was also accused of spending royalties wrongly and did not follow the state accounting regulations, etc.

Police investigated the center over three months. They concluded that VCPMC has legal entity to represent composers to collect royalties. The center operates under the Enterprise Law. By the end of 2011, VCPMC collected more than VND101 billion ($5 million) of royalty. It paid over VND82 billion to authors. The remaining VND19 billion has not been paid to composers yet because of objective reasons.

According to investigators, VCPMC’s only shortcoming was collecting royalty packages from companies and organization, including royalty of songs that the center was not authorized by authors. Some employees of the center were unqualified, resulted in shortcoming in financial activities. Investigators stated that they did not detect corruption or wrong doings at VCPCM.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh, vice chief inspector of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MoCST) said that in the history of the MoCST’s inspection division, this is the first investigation in which investigators did not find out any violation.

VCPCM’s director, composer Pho Duc Phuong, said that he had felt sad and hurt when his center was investigated, but the investigation result has proved the center’s innocence. He promised to deal with shortcomings that investigators had pointed out.

At present, 2,178 composers have authorized the center to collect royalties for them.

Controversy over the VCPMC’s operation broke out on February 16 when the center called for musicians to sign a petition that accused the Performing Art Agency of licensing performing licenses to show organizers without asking them to show royalty invoice.

The Performing Art Agency said that this petition was illegal because musicians had signed the blank petition and the agency had no responsibility of collecting royalty for VCPMC. The agency also accused VCPMC of having dubious financial activities.

Some well-known composers like Phu Quang and Quoc Trung said that VCPMC collected VND40 billion ($2 million) of royalty annually and kept VND10 billion for itself but the center did not protect composers’ works and did not allow authors to see documents on the center’s financial activities. People’s Artist Tran Binh planed to form another copyright protection center.

After that the economic police agency investigated the center.

B. Ha