Night shifts
At 10 pm, when many people are preparing to rest, a technical team at a television unit begins to enter a working shift that lasts until dawn. European football matches take place simultaneously, which is also the time when the copyright infringement scanning system is activated continuously.
Representatives of the television unit said that the team in charge of copyright protection only has about 10 people but must be divided into many shifts to monitor illegal broadcast websites, social networks and video sharing platforms.
According to this representative, combating copyright infringement is no longer a private story of Vietnam but has become a global issue. Many countries such as the UK, Germany or Thailand are also facing a similar situation, with increasing violations and very high levels of technology investment.
Copyright infringement units today have well-invested technical systems, not much different from mainstream television businesses. They have servers, technical teams, private commentators and operate almost a complete television platform," this representative said.
The digital content market in Vietnam currently has many different forms of violations. With sports, pirated websites mainly broadcast live international football matches, and also post highlights (short videos summarizing notable situations), full matches (full matches), news bulletins or full matches in the form of videos as required.
According to records from copyright holders, sports are still the most heavily affected sector. Especially, with major leagues such as the Premier League, Champions League, Serie A or Bundesliga, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, the number of visits to illegal websites always increases sharply during matches.
Representatives of the television unit said that the violating websites currently operate according to the "domain cluster" model. A system can own hundreds of backup domain names. When an address is blocked, viewers are immediately transferred to another domain.
Some websites own from a few dozen to several hundred domain names. When a domain is locked, the system automatically switches to another domain to maintain traffic. Therefore, even if there is a crackdown, a new website will still continue to appear," this person said.
Pressure from pirated websites and the copyright protection problem
According to another representative of a television business, the biggest difficulty currently lies in the speed of processing. A football match only lasts about 90 minutes, so if the prevention does not take place in real time, the effectiveness of copyright protection is almost meaningless.
We hope to continue to receive attention and support from competent state management agencies in building a synchronous coordination mechanism between network operators, in order to promptly block violating websites as soon as they are detected.
A football match only takes place in 90 minutes (excluding added time), if the handling is carried out after the match ends, it is almost meaningless. Therefore, we hope that illegal websites will be prevented immediately at the time of violation detection, or at the latest within 15 minutes from the time of detection," this representative said.
In addition to pirated websites, social networks have also become new "hot spots". Highlight videos, full matches, short clips or illegal livestreams appear densely on many platforms. Meanwhile, businesses almost have to perform violation reporting operations manually.
According to shares from businesses, there is currently no direct coordination mechanism between cross-border platforms and copyright holders in Vietnam. This makes the process of removing violating content take a lot of time.
We hope that the Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information will strengthen management measures for cross-border platforms, and at the same time build a support mechanism so that domestic broadcasting and television service providers can work more directly and effectively.
For example, it is possible to study building an electronic information portal that allows businesses to proactively provide evidence of violations, thereby shortening the time to handle copyright infringement acts. This mechanism will significantly reduce resources for businesses, instead of the form of manual reporting directly on platforms as at present," this representative said.
Representatives of the television unit said that pirated platforms often provide free or cheap products, but cause damage to artists, producers and legitimate businesses, the main source of revenue for pirated websites currently comes from football betting advertising and directing users to online betting platforms. Some pirated movie websites also attach 18+ content ads to increase revenue.
Meanwhile, mainstream television businesses only have main revenue from user subscribers. Investing in purchasing content copyrights and signal copying technology such as DRM or watermarking significantly increases operating costs.
To meet the requirements from international partners, businesses are forced to invest in technical systems to protect copyright. If broadcast signals are leaked, the risk of being cut off or affecting the contract is entirely possible," the representative said.
In the context of illegal websites continuously changing, the digital copyright protection battle is no longer a separate problem for each business. This is becoming a story directly related to the digital content business environment, the ability to attract international copyright investment and the development of the pay television market in Vietnam.
