Vietnam clarifies AI authorship, training data and copyright liability: A comparative lens

Vietnam's approach to AI regulations crosses many topics and sectors with one common theme emerging: human‑centered, state‑supervised and legally accountable framework. 

The country's policy direction is clearly reflected in its first standalone Law on Artificial Intelligence, which took effect March 2026. At the same time, Vietnam continues to promulgate sectoral regulations that govern how AI systems are trained, deployed and commercialized. 

One such law is Decree No. 134/2026/ND‑CP, issued 6 April 2026 and effective 9 April 2026. It amends Decree No. 17/2023/ND‑CP, guiding the implementation of Vietnam's Law on Intellectual Property regarding copyright and related rights. 

Decree No. 134 provides the primary analytical framework for examining AI‑copyright interaction. Against this framework, emerging legal approaches in China, the United States, and Vietnam can be compared across key issues of authorship, training data and downstream liability.

Although Decree No. 134 is a copyright decree, it plays a broader role in Vietnam's digital and AI regulatory architecture by providing detailed guidance on authorship, ownership, statutory exceptions, registration procedures and enforcement mechanisms. It bridges copyright law and AI regulation by embedding the principles of human control and legal accountability into the use of AI systems. 

In doing so, it introduces Vietnam's most detailed rules to date on AI‑assisted creation, text and data mining for training, opt‑out rights for rightsholders and downstream compliance obligations. 

For organizations developing or deploying AI systems in Vietnam, copyright law is no longer a peripheral consideration, but a compliance obligation that flows alongside data protection, cybersecurity and AI risk management.

Human authorship remains the legal anchor