HÀ NỘI — DID TV, which produced and owns the series Gạo Nếp Gạo Tẻ (Vương’s Family), has filed a lawsuit against FPT Telecom for infringing its copyright.

The company has asked for compensation of VNĐ9 billion (roughly US$387,000) for FPT’s use of the show. The lawsuit alleged that FPR copied, stored and exploited all 76 episodes, broadcasting them for pay despite having no deal with the producer, online newspaper vietnamnet reported.

DID TV discovered the infringement in August. The suit says the action was obviously a violation of the intellectual property law.

The production company told vietnamnet.vn last Friday that it had submitted a lawsuit letter to the People’s Court of HCM City’s District 3, and on December 6 the court accepted the case.

Bảo Thái, a DID TV representative, told the paper FPT Telecom’s action had infringed the company’s copyright and Article 28 of the Intellectual Property Law.

Thái said the violation had caused huge losses fir DID TV by directly affecting the viewing index of HTV2 –Vie and Entertainment TV, reducing the advertising revenue that DID TV receives from the channels, the view rate and revenue from online platforms such and Youtube and Facebook.

The violation had resulted in a decrease in the movie’s ratings, from between 3.5 and 4.0 to 2.0 at the end of October.

“It has really caused a large impact on the revenue grossed from the movie,” said Thái.

Gạo Nếp Gạo Tẻ, a romantic and psychological show produced in 2016, is a Vietnamese version of the famous Korean script of Wang’s Family, a television series about a typical South Korean family which won the most views in 2013.

The show’s title is always in the top weekly search words for Google Việt Nam. It also stands at the top of the trending list for Youtube Việt Nam in 2018, with more than 800 million total views.

The show was produced at a cost of more than VNĐ400 million per episode.

Its average copyright cost in the domestic market stands at about VNĐ250 million per episode.

The series is currently being broadcast on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays on the HTV2 channel. — VNS