News

May 30, 2001

Vietnam leads world in piracy of software, CDs
97 Percent of Titles Are Counterfeit, Group Says

BY MARK MCDONALD
Mercury News Vietnam Bureau

HANOI -- It should hardly be a surprise that Vietnam has retained its title as the undisputed world leader in software piracy.

The Ministry of Trade in downtown Hanoi is where the communist government drafts the decrees and directives that are supposed to protect software patents, global brands and trademarks, and music and film copyrights.

But right next door to the trade ministry, doing a land-office business day and night, is a shop that openly -- and illegally -- sells counterfeit music CDs, pirated DVDs and the latest software programs. Similar shops are easily found in every quarter of the city.

The Global Software Piracy Study, conducted for the Business Software Alliance, says 97 percent of the software sold in Vietnam last year was counterfeit.

China, which supplies many of Vietnam's shops with fake CDs and software, was the next-worst offender at 94 percent. Then came Ukraine at 89 percent and Russia at 88 percent.

Western Europe, in contrast, had a 34 percent piracy rate while the United States came in at 24 percent.

Worldwide, the study said, software theft cost the industry $11.8 billion last year.

In Vietnam, almost every brand-name consumer item is copied and counterfeited: Rolex watches, Honda motorbikes, YKK zippers, Pantene shampoo, Prada purses, even Japanese monosodium glutamate (MSG) and locally bottled water.

Fake versions of the popular mineral water La Vie are widely available here. Counterfeiters use plastic bottles and labels identical to La Vie while slightly changing the spelling of the name. One of the more ham-handed entrepreneurs labeled his product ``La Vile.''

Because the average Vietnamese wage is about a dollar a day, a $14.99 music CD or a $59.99 video game is well out of reach for most people.

But in Hanoi, a copy of Microsoft Office 2000 Professional that would set you back $280 in the United States costs just $5.25. First-run movies on DVD are $3.10. And pirated music CDs, just like the ones you'd get at Borders or Tower Records, go for 85 cents each. Sting, Clapton, Streisand, Eminem, Yo-Yo Ma, you name it.

If the shop doesn't have the movie or software titles you're looking for, you can order them from catalogs in the shop.

As an experiment, I asked for a copy of Adobe Premiere 6.0, a new video-editing program. The shop didn't have it, but the clerk took my phone number and called me two days later to say my order had arrived. The program, which came complete with serial numbers and installed error-free on my desktop, cost $1.10 in Hanoi. In the United States, it retails for $550.

I have since uninstalled the program and thrown it away.

Adobe, Miramax, Madonna and the Vietnamese tax collectors aren't the only ones losing out to the pirates.

Lac Viet Software, based in Hanoi, has created the authoritative English-Vietnamese dictionary program, and it's now installed in an estimated 350,000 personal computers in the country. Trouble is, Lac Viet has sold only 4,000 copies of its dictionaries. The rest, of course, are bootleg copies.

Nguyen Van Nghia, director of Lac Viet, said government ministries and offices are among the worst offenders. In particular, he cited FPT, one of the four state-owned Internet service providers, as a major culprit in the theft of software titles.
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Lofgren blasts priest's arrest

The recent arrest of Nguyen Van Ly, an outspoken Roman Catholic priest from Hue, has drawn predictably sharp criticism from the international community, particularly from Rep. Zoe Lofgren. The San Jose Democrat said Ly's arrest will definitely be an issue in future trade negotiations between the two countries.

``I am outraged to hear reports of increased arrests by the Vietnamese government of religious leaders,'' said Lofgren, who co-chairs a House panel investigating religious persecution in Vietnam.

She called on Secretary of State Colin Powell to pressure Vietnam to release Ly, along with several Buddhist monks who have recently been jailed, detained or placed under house arrest. Powell, who served in Vietnam during the war, will visit the country in late July during a summit meeting of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

``The ambassador and other U.S. officials have raised our strong concerns with the Vietnamese government and urged that Father Ly be returned to his church residence,'' a U.S. Embassy official said.

A representative of the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed Ly's arrest for parole violations stemming from a previous conviction (and nine years of imprisonment) for circulating anti-government tracts.

She rejected calls for Ly's release, saying the affair was purely an internal matter and that other countries should neither interfere nor comment about it.
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Outcry defeats helmet law

The government has abandoned a plan to require all motorcycle riders to wear helmets starting Thursday, the first time that a prime ministerial decree has been reversed in the face of public criticism.

The original decree, signed by prime minister Phan Van Khai, was openly ridiculed in the state-run media, and the Ministry of Public Security boldly announced several weeks ago that its officers simply would not comply.

Citizens also rejected the new edict, saying the helmets were too hot and unfashionable, and that they might restrict riders' peripheral vision. There are some 7 million motorbikes in Vietnam, with only about 5 percent of riders now wearing helmets on the country's increasingly dangerous and chaotic roadways.
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Stiff sentences for smugglers

A Vietnamese court this week handed down long prison terms to 37 members of ``an exile reactionary group'' that had been operating out of Cambodia and Thailand.

Prosecutors said the group had smuggled in weapons, explosives, anti-government tracts and South Vietnamese flags to disrupt festivals and state holidays. One of their alleged targets was to be a prominent statue of Ho Chi Minh located in Ho Chi Minh City.

State-run newspapers in Hanoi said the group, which is said to be associated with the Free Vietnam movement, is led by Nguyen Huu Chanh, a Vietnamese man living in the United States. Chanh's whereabouts, the government said, is unknown.

The longest of the prison sentences was 20 years, the shortest 30 months. Prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty for some defendants.
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