Reviewing the legality of the pre-installed TV viewing application on smart TVs
From 2018, in Vietnam, radio and television services on demand on the Internet (OTT TV VOD) began to develop with the participation of foreign businesses. For domestic enterprises, content on demand (VOD) must be performed Strictly edited by a broadcasting license holder.
However, VOD content on OTT TV VOD services of foreign enterprises is not edited, classified and warned in accordance with Vietnamese law, leading to many content that violates the ban such as distorting history, deny revolutionary achievements; violating Vietnam’s territorial sovereignty; violate the fine customs, fine customs and fine cultural traditions of the Vietnamese nation.
On the other hand, the trend of watching TV content on smart TVs through Internet TV applications is increasingly popular. The Vietnamese market currently has many models and types of smart TVs manufactured and distributed by many manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung, LG, TCL, Casper, Panasonic… With the feature of customizing the operating system interface, smart TVs often pre-installed with a number of TV viewing applications on the home screen interface, such as Netflix, FPT Play, TV360, AmazonTV, Fim +, YouTube ….
The Department of Broadcasting, Television and Electronic Information, Ministry of Information and Communications, said that pre-installing TV viewing applications helps to increase the experience, towards optimizing the demand for viewing and viewing television easily. Access to personalized content.
But in fact, many of the above-mentioned pre-installed TV viewing applications and applications that are integrated into buttons on smart TV controls are not allowed to operate in Vietnam. On these applications, there is a lot of bad and harmful content that is not suitable for Vietnamese culture, negatively affecting viewers who are children and teenagers.
From that fact, the Ministry of Information and Communications soon proposed and was assigned by the Government to amend and supplement the provisions of Decree 06 in 2016 of the Government. On October 1, 2022, the Government issued Decree 71/2022/ND-CP amending and supplementing Decree 06 of 2016 of the Government on management, provision and use of radio and television services. image.
Effective from this year, Decree 71 stipulates that enterprises provide on-demand television services on the Internet with the content of radio and television programs, news programs, current affairs and sports. , entertainment and movies subject to a license to provide pay radio and television services. The new regulations in Decree 71 also apply to foreign enterprises providing cross-border on-demand television services to Vietnam.
According to the Department of Information and Communication Technology, currently the state management agency has sufficient legal grounds to Good management of movie delivery services and radio and television programs on the Internet, especially for foreign enterprises providing cross-border services to Vietnamese users.
Along with that, state management activities with applications for watching television on the Internet will be promoted, ensuring that the content must comply with the provisions of the law, people can easily access cultural information content. Healthy culture, society, entertainment and television contribute to maintaining and promoting the fine cultural traditions of the Vietnamese nation.
To disseminate and guide foreign businesses to comply with the new regulations that have taken effect, the Ministry of Information and Communications has written requests to Netflix, AppleAmazon, Tencent, IQIYI and Hunan Happy Sunshine Interactive Entertainment Media reported plans to carry out procedures for applying for a license to provide pay radio and television services.
For enterprises that import, manufacture and distribute smart TVs in the Vietnamese market, the Ministry of Information and Communications requires reviewing the legality of television viewing applications that are pre-installed on the product home screen or integrated into the market. combine into the key on the remote control to ensure not breaking the law.
The Ministry of Information and Communications also suggested that production enterprises plan to be ready to install the home screen and integrate the key to access the national digital TV viewing application on smart TVs, when the competent authority officially approves the application. standards and publication. This is to concretize the National Digital Transformation Program and the Program to promote the development and use of national digital platforms serving digital conversion.
