In recent days, the situation of localized shortage of textbooks for students even though the new school year has begun to occur in many localities across the country. Faced with the situation that buying and registering to borrow are not enough sets of books, many parents have chosen the solution of downloading soft files and then printing them; or borrowing books from acquaintances to photocopy missing books... to serve the learning of their children.
According to lawyer Dang Thanh Tri (Dang Thanh Law Company Limited, Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association), although it is possible to sympathize with the photocopying and printing of textbooks for children by parents, from a legal perspective, the above act may have violated the provisions of the current Law on Intellectual Property.
According to Clause 1, Article 14 of the Law on Intellectual Property, textbooks are subject to copyright protection. Therefore, copying must comply with regulations to not be considered a violation.
In which, the content of copying a textbook or curriculum for scientific research, personal study and not for commercial purposes is specified in point a, Clause 1, Article 25 of the Law on Intellectual Property. However, this regulation does not apply in cases of copying using copying devices (printers, photocopiers, cameras... )
At the same time, point b, Clause 1, Article 25 of the Law on Intellectual Property also stipulates that when using copied devices, only a part of the work can be copied for scientific research, personal study and not for commercial purposes.
According to the guidance in Article 25 of Decree 17/2023/ND-CP (in which Clause 2 is amended by Article 9 of Decree 134/2026/ND-CP), copying by photocopying, taking photos or other similar forms is not allowed to exceed 10% of the total number of pages or total storage units... ; independent of each organization, each individual performing, and if there is repetition, it is individual cases that are not related to each other on the same work.
Thus, compared with the above regulations, copying (photocopying, printing) a textbook for children to study without copyright infringement when only performing less than 10% of the number of pages of a book. Copying the entire book using copying equipment is copyright infringement according to current regulations, for both parents and photocopying and printing establishments.
According to lawyer Dang Thanh Tri, to comply with regulations, parents can photocopy and print some of the first pages of books for children to study temporarily in the first days of the school year. Or, depending on the conditions, they can request the school to use a projector to project textbooks in class so that all students can follow; or organize the sharing of textbooks for children to sit next to each other, while waiting for the full supplementation of textbooks to be released in localities.
