Vietnam: Singers are free to lip-sync without worrying about penalties from February 01, 2021

Specifically, according to Article 3 of the Decree No. 144/2020/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government, prohibited acts in performance arts include:

- Scheming against the Government of Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

- Distorting history, independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam; infringing national security; denying revolution achievement; offending leaders, national heroes and historical figures; damaging national integrity; offending religions and beliefs; discriminating; violating legal rights and benefits of organizations and individuals.

- Inciting violence, spreading wars of aggression, inciting conflict between ethnic groups and nationals of other countries, impacting diplomatic relationship.

- Employing outfits, languages, sound, visual, movements, media or methods which go against tradition or affect moral, health and psychology of the general public negatively.

According to current regulation at Point d Clause 2 Article 6 of the Decree No. 79/2012/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government, using sound recordings to replace the actual voice of performers or actual sound of musical instruments is strictly prohibited.

Thus, according to the above provisions, Decree No. 144/2020/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government has annulled the provision that using sound recordings to replace the actual voice of performers or actual sound of musical instruments is strictly prohibited. It is possible that for some reasons, the singer cannot directly sing in the performance but must use the previous recording to perform. Thus, from February 01, 2021, this behavior will not be strictly prohibited. Therefore, the audience should not be too strict with the singer when using the phonogram in the performance because it is not prohibited by law, so the singer has the right to do so.

Besides, the following prohibited acts are also annulled by the Decree No. 144/2020/NĐ-CP, particularly:

- Changing the contents or adding moves inconsistent with the approved contents;

- Advertising in a way that impersonate artists or art groups; advertising artists inconsistently with the licensed contents;

- Adding or cutting pictures or sounds that change the contents of the audio and video recordings permitted to circulate;

- Reproducing audio and video recordings banned from circulation or decided to be confiscated and destructed;

- Reproducing audio and video recordings without the consent from the owner of their copyright.

Le Hai

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