Hanoi karaoke company director prosecuted for pirating thousands of songs

On Saturday, Hanoi police charged Diep, 45, a resident of Hoang Mai Ward, with infringing copyright and related rights.

Investigators said Diep directed employees to copy music from multiple digital platforms despite holding no licensing agreements.

The songs were converted into a proprietary karaoke format and loaded onto VietKTV-branded devices.

The data was stored on a cloud-based system and an original four-terabyte hard drive before being copied onto karaoke players or all-in-one karaoke systems for sale.

Devices without a built-in hard drive still allowed users to download songs free of charge through a pre-installed online connection.

From 2023 to June 2026, the company sold 919 products, generating about VND852 million in illegal profits.

A review of more than 41,000 data files by the Vietnam Center for Protection of Music Copyright initially identified around 1,500 unauthorized works, with estimated damages of VND600 million ($22,813).

Police described the case, the third consecutive crackdown of its kind, as a strong warning against using digital technology to profit from intellectual property theft.

Hanoi police urged organizations and individuals not to copy, distribute, or sell copyrighted works without authorization, warning that violators would face strict legal action.