Vietnam now has a generation willing to spend millions of VND on concert tickets.
Yet it is also a generation that can pirate a movie within just a few clicks.
That may be the biggest contradiction in Vietnam’s cultural market today.
???? Vietnamese consumers are spending more on culture than ever before.
Concerts are selling out.
Vietnamese movies are reaching record-breaking box office numbers.
Young consumers are increasingly willing to pay for Netflix, Spotify, and digital reading platforms.
Merchandise, fan meetings, and digital content ecosystems are all growing rapidly.
Behind those numbers is a very important signal:
Culture is gradually becoming a real economic sector.
???? But alongside that growth comes a major paradox.
Consumers are increasingly willing to pay for entertainment experiences, yet movie piracy, illegal music streaming, ebook sharing, and unauthorized content distribution remain highly common and in many cases, still socially normalized.
This is no longer just a legal issue.
It is a question of consumer behavior and the long-term sustainability of the creative economy.
???? Behind every piece of cultural content is an entire value chain.
A movie is not just actors on screen it represents hundreds of people working behind the scenes.
A song is not just a few minutes of audio it carries years of creative effort, production costs, and intellectual labor.
A book is not just a PDF file it involves copyrights, editing, translation, publishing, and distribution.
When consumers become accustomed to “free consumption,” the market gradually loses its ability to reinvest in quality.
And ultimately, the damage does not only affect artists or content companies.
Audiences themselves lose the opportunity to access better cultural products in the future.
???? From a market research perspective, Vietnam is currently in a fascinating transition phase.
Because two consumer trends are happening simultaneously:
This suggests that Vietnam is going through a major shift in cultural consumption behavior.
In the past, piracy could partly be explained by limited legal platforms, payment barriers, or accessibility issues.
Today, those barriers are significantly lower.
The bigger question now is:
Have consumers truly started to see paying for content as a civilized and responsible behavior?
???? Notably, on May 5, 2026, Deputy Prime Minister Hồ Quốc Dũng signed Official Dispatch 38/CĐ-TTg on combating intellectual property infringement.
Authorities were instructed to launch a nationwide enforcement campaign from May 7–30 under the principle of:
“no restricted areas, no exceptions.”
The main focus is digital copyright infringement, an issue directly impacting the growth of Vietnam’s content industry and cultural economy.
This signals that copyright is no longer being treated as a secondary issue within entertainment.
It is increasingly viewed as part of Vietnam’s broader creative economy strategy, where intellectual property, digital content, and intangible assets are becoming critical drivers of long-term growth.
???? A cultural industry cannot scale if legitimate revenue is not strong enough to sustain the creative ecosystem.
No investor wants to fund large-scale films if movies are leaked on piracy sites within hours of release.
No platform can sustainably grow if value continuously leaks to copyright-infringing channels.
And no artist can build a long-term career if creative work is endlessly exploited for free.
Copyright does not only protect artists.
It determines whether a market can generate enough economic value to continue producing high-quality content.
✨ The encouraging sign is that change is already happening, especially among Gen Z consumers.
More young people are now willing to pay for cultural experiences they genuinely value.
Not only because it is more convenient, but because they increasingly see payment as a way of supporting creators and sustaining creativity itself.
And perhaps that is the most important foundation of a mature cultural industry:
Not simply having large audiences.
But having enough consumers who are willing to pay for creativity so that creativity can continue to exist.
A society willing to pay for creative value is often a sign of a more mature economy.
