Vietnam’s Decree 134/2026 says a song generated entirely by artificial intelligence carries no copyright in Vietnam, and it hands rightsholders a formal channel to block their catalogues from being used as AI training data. The decree was issued on 6 April 2026 and took effect on 9 April, amending Decree 17/2023 on copyright and related rights.
It is one of the first Southeast Asian markets to write the AI question into its copyright rules rather than wait for case law.
The human contribution test
Article 5a sets the bar. Copyright arises only where a human makes a substantial and decisive intellectual contribution and exercises effective control over the outcome.
AI is treated as a tool, never a rightsholder. Work generated entirely by a model gets no protection, according to the 13 May 2026 analysis by Baker McKenzie’s Manh Hung Tran and colleagues, which also notes the expectation that creators retain prompts and drafts evidencing human involvement.
The consequence is evidentiary. If AI sat anywhere in your chain, the file proving human authorship is now part of the asset.
The opt-out is real, and it has two channels
Articles 37a to 37c cover TDM. TDM means text and data mining, the automated ingestion of works to train or test a model.
Article 37a permits it for research, testing and AI training where use stays non-commercial at the point of use, the source was lawfully published, and no technical protection was circumvented.
Article 37b is the one a catalogue owner should read twice. Rightsholders can reserve their works against mining by either of two routes, per Thuy Thi Ngoc Huynh’s 29 April 2026 breakdown for Managing IP:
- Machine-readable rights-management information carried with the files themselves.
- A declaration made through a collective management organisation.
In music that second route points at VCPMC, the Vietnam Center for Protection of Music Copyright, which represents authors, alongside RIAV for producers and APPA for performers.
Article 37c flips the burden. Anyone commercially exploiting a model trained on protected material must keep technical records and datasets, and royalty obligations may follow.
Enforcement got heavier first
The penalty side moved first. Decree 341/2025, effective 15 February 2026, replaced the 2013 sanctions regime, and Tilleke and Gibbins reported maximum administrative fines of VND 250 million for individuals and VND 500 million for organisations, roughly USD 9,500 and USD 19,000.
Infringing acts expanded from 31 to 43. Remedial measures went from 4 to 29, now including blocking of infringing digital content and disgorgement of profits.
It also reaches foreign entities whose content is accessed or exploited by users inside Vietnam. An offshore distributor is inside the perimeter.
Why it lands in a market already full of AI vocals
Not hypothetical here. “Say một đời vì em”, credited to Huong My Bong and Ken Quach and performed by AI, entered the top 10 most-searched Vietnamese songs of 2025, Báo Hà Tĩnh reported on 9 April 2026.
SGGP’s Tieu Tan wrote on 16 January 2026 that Huong My Bong later sued over the track, and quoted composer Nguyen Van Chung warning that income and recognition would get harder for human writers.
All of this while Vietnam switches on its collection layer. The standardised royalty schedule for commercial venues took effect on 1 July 2026.
What to do with a Vietnamese catalogue this quarter
- Attach machine-readable rights-management information at delivery, not as a later cleanup pass.
- File the TDM reservation through the relevant society if you want the declaratory route as well.
- Keep a human-contribution record for every AI-assisted release: prompts, session files, stems, dated drafts.
- Register electronically. Article 38.9 gives electronic certificates the same legal status as paper ones.
A reservation only works if something carries it. DDEX, the Digital Data Exchange standard governing how release metadata moves between labels and platforms, is where that flag lives or dies.
So this is a delivery question too. Whoever ships your catalogue to Zing MP3 and NhacCuaTui as well as Spotify carries your rights information into a jurisdiction that has now decided to read it. Set against the opt-in structure of 2026’s AI licensing deals, where the choice sits upstream with a rightsholder, Vietnam has put part of it back in yours.
