Yes, Playing Music for Customers Can Trigger a Legal Obligation

Under Vietnam’s Law on Intellectual Property, businesses that use published songs in the course of their operations are generally not required to seek permission from the songwriter — but they are required to pay royalties. Playing music at a coffee shop to enhance the customer experience counts as a business use, which means the obligation applies.

In practice, this means owners need to take three concrete steps:

How Do You Know Your Money Is Reaching the Right Artists?

VCPMC collects a significant sum from businesses across Vietnam every year, which naturally raises a fair question: how can a business owner be confident that money is actually reaching the songwriters and performers it’s meant for?

According to Daniel, current regulations already build in several safeguards. Royalties must be held in a separate, dedicated account, distribution generally cannot be delayed more than six months after collection, and the collective management organization’s administrative costs are capped and must appear in audited financial statements.

That means business owners don’t need to personally track how royalties are distributed after they’ve paid. What actually matters is verifying, before paying, that VCPMC genuinely holds the right of representation, understanding the scope of that right, and confirming the basis on which the fee is calculated. Keeping full documentation — contracts, invoices, and payment confirmations — and requesting written confirmation of the exact rights covered is the best protection against being asked to pay twice or facing unexpected claims later.

What About International Songs by Artists Who Aren’t VCPMC Members?

A common misconception is that royalties only apply to Vietnamese songs registered directly with VCPMC. Not so. VCPMC can still collect royalties for international works, provided it has a valid basis for representation — for example, through the artist’s authorization or a reciprocal agreement with a foreign collective management organization.

VCPMC has stated it maintains cooperation agreements with 90 collective management organizations across 164 countries and territories, meaning a large share of international music likely falls under its scope. When an author can be identified, collected royalties are distributed to them or their representative organization; if not, the funds are managed under the mechanism for undistributed royalties.

“But I Already Pay for Spotify” — Why That’s Not Enough

This is perhaps the most common point of confusion, and Daniel’s answer is refreshingly direct: paying a streaming platform and having the legal right to play music commercially in Vietnam are two entirely different things.

There are two separate layers to consider:

That said, Daniel is careful to note this isn’t a blanket rule either. Whether an additional payment to VCPMC is required depends on the type of license held, what it actually permits, the scope of rights granted, and whether VCPMC has a valid basis to represent those specific rights. The safest approach is to check the license terms and the actual intended use before playing music commercially — rather than assuming a paid subscription automatically covers everything. Using music beyond what a personal-use license allows exposes a business to two separate risks at once: breaching the platform’s terms, and violating Vietnamese copyright law.

Can Businesses Just Use AI-Generated Music Instead — For Free?

With AI now able to generate a full song in seconds, it’s tempting to assume this sidesteps copyright entirely. Daniel’s answer: it’s more complicated than it looks.

The key question under current regulations is whether AI acted merely as a tool, or generated the entire work independently. If a person made a meaningful creative contribution — shaping the concept, selecting outputs, editing, arranging, and finalizing the product — there’s a reasonable basis to claim copyright protection over that human contribution. If a user simply typed a prompt and the AI produced the entire track with essentially no human creative input, copyright protection becomes far murkier.

Crucially, Daniel stresses that the absence of copyright protection does not mean the music is risk-free to use. A business still needs to understand how the track was generated, what data or existing works the AI model was trained or prompted on, and whether it may have drawn on protected material in ways that affect the rights of the original authors, artists, or owners.

Before using AI-generated music commercially, Daniel recommends checking three things:

It’s also worth keeping records of the creation and editing process — useful evidence should a dispute ever arise.

The Real Cost of Non-Compliance

For F&B, retail, and hospitality businesses, ignoring music royalty obligations isn’t a low-risk shortcut. Administrative penalties currently range from VND 10–20 million for individuals or business households, and VND 20–40 million for organizations — on top of which the business may still owe back-payment for the period the music was used. If the obligation remains unresolved 90 days after use began, a business may be ordered to stop playing music altogether.

Daniel points to a real precedent: in 2018, VCPMC publicly pursued a case against Sky Music Company over alleged music copyright infringement. Sky Music was accused of pulling music data from an online streaming partner of VCPMC, falsely claiming copyright ownership, and collecting royalties from numerous restaurants, hotels, and coffee shops without ever paying the actual authors. The dispute ended with Sky Music agreeing to stop exploiting the works and paying VCPMC VND 3.3 billion in damages — a striking reminder that the cost of getting this wrong can vastly outweigh the cost of simply doing it right from the start.

Is Turning the Music Off a Valid Solution?

Some businesses choose to simply switch the music off rather than deal with royalty payments — and legally, there’s nothing wrong with that. If a business doesn’t use protected works or recordings, no royalty obligation arises in the first place.

But Daniel offers a broader, business-minded perspective worth considering: music is often part of the customer experience and brand identity, not just background noise. Viewed that way, a royalty payment isn’t simply a fee to avoid — it’s the cost of capturing real commercial value. If music genuinely contributes to a business’s atmosphere and brand, the smarter move may be weighing that value against the royalty cost, rather than defaulting to silence.

The Takeaway

Music copyright compliance in Vietnam is not just a niche legal technicality — it’s an operational risk that touches any F&B, retail, or hospitality business playing music for customers, whether that music comes from a licensed streaming platform, a local artist, or an AI generator. The rules are navigable, but they require businesses to look past assumptions (“I already pay for Spotify,” “AI music is free to use”) and verify the actual scope of their rights and obligations.