By Hoa Dinh ( June 30, 2026, 05:05 GMT | Insight) -- Starting in July, social media users, website operators and social network providers in Vietnam will face fines for unauthorized reposting, sharing or storage of copyrighted works under Decree 174. The new rules form part of the Vietnamese government's broader push to strengthen intellectual property protection and enforcement.Vietnam is stepping up intellectual property enforcement in the digital space, with unauthorized posting, storage and sharing of copyrighted works facing administrative penalties from July.Under the government’s Decree 174, issued last month to replace Decree 15 from 2020, social media users who post or share journalistic, literary, artistic or published works without consent from the rights holders face fines of 20-30 million dong ($760-1,140).Fines of 30-40 million dong will be imposed on website owners for the same violation, and 50-70 million dong for domestic social network providers that store or share these works without rights holders’ consent. They will be required to remove the unlawful content, and have their domain names revoked and applications removed as remedial measures.The decree will take effect amid the US's ongoing IP enforcement investigation in Vietnam (see here) following the latter’s designation as a ‘Priority Foreign Country’ – a category reserved for countries that will face the highest level of scrutiny in IP protection and enforcement – in this year’s Special 301 Report (see here).However, violations will be assessed on a case-by-case basis to avoid sweeping penalties, said Le Quang Tu Do, director of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information, under Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, at a mid-year review conference held in Hanoi last Wednesday.“If social media users, pages or channels only share the link of an article on social media, it is not considered copyright infringement,” he said according to state media reports, explaining that a link is merely a tool that leads to the news site and helps readers access the article.“However, if users share a link with part of, or all of, the article's content without the newspaper's consent, this might constitute a copyright infringement,” he said.The issue of "reworking" journalistic content, which involves taking main ideas from an article, rewriting them and posting as new social media content, will also be assessed carefully.“If it is exclusive information that the publication has investigated, collected or exploited on its own, reusing it could constitute a copyright infringement,” said Do. “But if the information is widely available and has been published by several news outlets and people, the reuse might not be considered a violation.”At a conference held earlier the same day to discuss the decree, Pham Thi Kim Oanh, deputy director of the Copyright Office of Vietnam, also under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, stressed that content creators must be aware of their responsibility to verify sources of materials and ensure they have the right to use them.“Citing sources or attaching links to the original works cannot substitute for permission to use the work. Digital content creators must clearly identify the origin and legal status of images, videos, music, articles, broadcast programs and so on, before using them,” she said.They may only use content permitted by the copyright holder, content that falls within the exceptions of the intellectual property law — which can be used without the right holder’s consent — or content that has been authorized by platforms, Oanh added. “The permission must be documented in writing,” she said.Decree 174 is part of the Vietnamese government’s efforts to crack down on IP infringements across the country. A nationwide campaign was run from May 7 to 30 following the US’s release of the Special 301 Report (see here), with a focus on takedown of websites broadcasting pirated films, music, and video games, and stopping the use of unlicensed software at small- and medium-sized businesses.Please e-mail editors@mlex.com to contact the editorial staff regarding this story, or to submit the names of lawyers and advisers....