User:Artpoetryfiction/Vietnam Passes New Intellectual Property Law
May 31, 2006 {{editorial}} Minh Huy. "Intellectual property law confuses software makers" — Saigon Times Daily, Wednesday, May 31, 2006 has written to detail Vietnam's newly passed IP law. Vietnam has been agressively seeking WTO status and appears ready for ratification if the US Congress approves. As part of this process Vietnam has extensively overhauled their legal system over the last several years. The latest law passed is Vietnam's new IP law, and it appears to be a major blunder.
Minh Huy writes, "Many local softare firms are still puzzled about how to apply the newly passed intellectual property law in their operations..." and with just cause. Vietnam's new law is without a doubt a victory for the worker, but contrary to Vietnam's previous efforts at reform, this effort starkly displays the contrast between Socialism and common business practice. "Copyright grants an author the right to protect the work so that no one can legally change the software without the author's consent," said Dao Minh Duc, the instructor for the governments workshop on the newly passed law. The conflict? The programmer is considered the author which flies in the face of Western methodology where programmers are strictly under contract to the company which owns fully copyright.
How far does this go? The implications are enormous. In the software industry alone, which the Vietnamese government has been aggresively pursueing with business incentives, tax free status, and other benefits, this could mean the absolute end to software Outsourcing in Vietnam. Imagine, if you will, that an international company wants to outsource their software development and they pick Vietnam. Each staff member that works at the Vietnamese company that is doing the development will have legal right to copyright as an author under Vietnamese law. In 2005 Vietnam ratified the Berne convention, which means that under international copyright law, as original author the Vietnamese programmer has original copyright enforceable world wide under the Berne convention. Result, by outsourcing my software development to Vietnam, I lost copyright of my software. If I'm IBM, Microsoft, Apple, or anyone Vietnam has just become a no fly zone for outsourcing.
Is software the only industry effected? What about architecture, circuit design (Intel is building a $300Million dollar factor in Vietnam), or any other engineering design? Author rights are clear. If the staff and not the company are considered the authors of their work, then no company in their right mind would should want to design their product in Vietnam.
What can we conclude from all this? Is power to people anti-corporate? Are corporations anti-people? Who can say. One thing is certain, Vietnam didn't clearly see the difference between software and novel. But then who does? The United States' copyright law still deals with software in the same way as a novel. So maybe the Vietnamese law is better than the international standard because it recognizes the author over the publisher.
