Title: Selling Theses Online: What is the Penalty?

Theses or graduation essays are creative and intellectual products that represent significant effort and achievement by each student. However, many people, for profit, sell these works without the author's consent. Recently, many alumni of Can Tho University discovered that their university graduation theses were posted and sold on a website. This is an act that violates intellectual property law.

According to regulations, any organization or individual who exploits or uses, in whole or in part, economic rights such as copying, distributing (copies or originals) of the work, transmitting the work to the public via wire, wireless, electronic information networks, or any other technical means, must obtain permission and pay royalties, remuneration, and other material benefits to the copyright owner. However, the sale of theses on the internet in this case did not involve requesting permission or paying royalties and remuneration.

Article 28 of the Intellectual Property Law clearly states the acts of copyright infringement as follows:

- Appropriating author's rights to literary, artistic, and scientific works.- Falsely claiming authorship.- Publishing or distributing a work without the author's permission.- Publishing or distributing a work with joint authorship without the permission of the co-authors.- Modifying, mutilating, or distorting a work in any form that harms the honor and reputation of the author.- Copying a work without the permission of the author or copyright owner, except for making a single copy for the purpose of personal scientific research, teaching, or copying a work for library storage for research purposes.- Creating derivative works without permission from the author or copyright owner of the work used to create the derivative work, except for converting works into braille or other languages for the visually impaired.- Using a work without the permission of the copyright owner, not paying royalties, remuneration, and other material benefits as prescribed by law, except for cases of using published works without permission and without paying royalties, remuneration.- Renting out works without paying royalties, remuneration, and other material benefits to the author or copyright owner.- Reproducing, manufacturing copies, distributing, displaying, or transmitting works to the public via media and digital means without the permission of the copyright owner.- Deliberately deleting or altering electronic rights management information contained in the work.- ...

Acts of copyright infringement will be administratively sanctioned as specified in Decree 131/2013/ND-CP. For example:

- Publishing a work without the permission of the copyright owner: Fines from 5 to 10 million VND;- Distributing a work without the permission of the copyright owner: Fines from 10 to 30 million VND;- Transmitting a work to the public via wire, wireless, electronic information networks, or any technical means without the permission of the copyright owner: Fines from 15 to 30 million VND;- Copying a work without the permission of the copyright owner: Fines from 15 to 35 million VND.

Websites that post and sell theses online may be handled according to Clause 2, Article 64 of Decree 174/2013/ND-CP. To be specific: Fines from 10 to 20 million VND for not providing information on a general electronic information page as prescribed in the license; not quoting verbatim and accurately the original source as prescribed.

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