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On December 10, Vietnam’s National Assembly adopted an amended IP (intellectual property) law designed to update the legislation for the digital age, and especially to address issues involving the intersection of AI and IP. The next phase will be drafting of the regulations necessary to bring the law into effect by April 1, 2026. The law does several things; it will explicitly recognize IP as an economic asset allowing it to be used for financial and accounting purposes, and as collateral for loans; it clarifies that works autonomously generated by AI without substantive human creative input are not eligible for IP protection; and it allows the use of lawfully published works and data for AI research, testing, and training, provided that such use does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of rights holders and the resulting outputs do not infringe copyright. While all this sounds good on the surface, there are potential hidden problems with the AI research, testing and training provisions. In drafting the implementing regulations, Vietnam needs to be careful to not undermine its vibrant creative industries that depend on copyright protection to thrive.
The translated wording of the AI provision (Clause 5, Article 7) is rendered in English as follows:
“Organizations and individuals may use text and data related to intellectual property rights that have been lawfully published and made publicly accessible for purposes of scientific research, experimentation, training of artificial intelligence systems, provided that such use does not unreasonably affect the legitimate rights and interests of the author or the holder of intellectual property rights as stipulated by this Law.
At first glance, this looks like another “standard” Text and Data Mining (TDM) exception, a carve out from copyright protection being pushed by the AI industry in a number of Asian countries, as I recently wrote about here. In that blog post, I noted that lawmakers and regulators in Asia are grappling with a common problem; how to incentivize the development of responsible AI while continuing to encourage and promote all-important content industries. Vietnam is facing the same issue. Throwing the cultural sector under the bus in the hopes of attracting some ephemeral hi-tech AI jobs is a false bargain. Strong cultural industries enable the development of strong content licensing markets for AI development, enabling a virtuous circle of further creativity. A strong cultural sector and strong, sustainable digital industries, especially those powered by AI, go hand-in-hand. To this end, Vietnam has put in some important guardrails, such as requiring that any copyright protected works used for AI training (1) be lawfully accessed and (2) be made publicly accessible for the purposes of training of artificial intelligence systems (among other uses). Additionally, language has been adopted from the Berne Convention “three step test” that requires the use to “not unreasonably affect the legitimate rights and interests of the author”. So far so good, but these features may not be adequate to protect the interests of Vietnam’s creative industries unless made explicit. This is where careful drafting of the regulations comes into play.
First, on lawful access, this is positive in that it rules out the use of pirated content to train AI systems (if enforced) and should make it illegal to bypass a paywall (digital lock, or technological protection method, TPM) to access content. However, this provision provides only relatively thin protection since lawful access can be obtained by purchasing the cheapest or lowest minimal access possible and then using that access to justify commercial exploitation. For example, an AI company could purchase exactly one copy of each book that it wants to ingest, or one copy of a sound or audio-visual recording.
With respect to the requirement that content be made “publicly accessible” before it can be used for training, this implies that any content not made publicly accessible should be off limits to AI developers. Therefore, disclaimers or terms of service specifying what uses are acceptable must be respected along with technical indicators, such as robots.txt protocols, that mark content that is not to be copied. Again, regulation will need to specifically deal with these points to avoid any ambiguity. On the basis of the “trust but verify” principle, AI developers should be subject to maximum transparency requirements and must be required to document all protected content used for training.
To give effect to the language taken from the Berne Convention requiring the use to not unreasonably affect the legitimate rights and interests of the author, this could also be addressed by regulation to make the meaning precise. For example, AI outputs that substitute for the originals on which they were trained clearly prejudice the rights and interests of the rights-holder. It is not enough that an AI produced output does not directly mimic the original; if it displaces it in the market, it is also damaging the economic interests of the author.
Finally, the law indicates that the use of text and data subject to copyright “must also comply with the Government’s regulations.” It is far from clear what this means. The use of text and data already must comply with the terms of the legislation as described above. This phrase would hardly seem necessary unless it is intended to provide some sort of general override that would invalidate the guardrails embedded in the law. This should be clarified in regulation or dropped entirely.
Vietnam has a lively and thriving cultural sector that is a key manifestation of its cultural expression and sovereignty. The Vietnam Creator’s Coalition has estimated that the arts, entertainment and recreation sector employed over 281,000 people and contributed VND 55,694 billion (USD $2.12 billion) to the Vietnamese economy. The cornerstone of this economic strength and growth is Vietnam’s copyright framework. The National Target Program for Cultural Development has set a target for the cultural industries to contribute 7 percent of the country’s GDP by 2030. If copyright protection is inadvertently gutted by poor application of the new law, those targets will be unattainable and the sector, an important instrument of national expression, will suffer.
The other element of the content protection environment in Vietnam that continuously undermines both domestic and international rightsholders is piracy. Vietnam is a known centre of audiovisual piracy, hosting numerous sites that operate more or less openly. It has been called out by USTR’s Special 301 report on many occasions, most recently again in 2025. Initially the worst offender was a pirate operation going by the name of 123Movies. More recently it has been Phimmoi and FMovies. Enforcement is weak and when a pirate site is shut down, usually after prolonged effort by rightsholders, it is not long before it is back in business. It is not just international rightsholders who suffer. The mass copying of the film “Red Rain” (Mưa Đỏ), the 2025 Vietnamese epic historical war drama adapted from a novel about the Second Battle of Quảng Trị in 1972, a fierce and protracted battle in the Vietnam War, is Exhibit A for the damage wrought by domestic piracy, as outlined by the British legal firm Rouse. The inability or unwillingness of the Vietnamese authorities to take effective action against openly operating pirate sites is a blot on Vietnam’s IP record and undermines the credibility of the stated objectives of the new IP law.
From the overall thrust of the law, it seems that Vietnam’s lawmakers want to protect the country’s valuable cultural assets and creative energy while providing scope for AI developers to have access to protected content under clearly defined conditions that respect the legitimate rights of creators. The regulations that will be drafted over the next few months need to make this explicit and apparent or else the intent of the law could be subverted. Robust action is also required to end the free ride being afforded to content pirates. It is often said that the proof of the pudding lies in the eating. In this case, the proof of the legislation lies in the drafting of sound regulations to implement the new IP law effectively, while taking meaningful action to curb the scourge of AV piracy.
© Hugh Stephens, 2026. All Rights Reserved.
