Every nation has intellectual and artistic freedom. All rights for copyrighters, inventors, scientific technicians and artists are protected by the copyright law. This is one of the clauses in chapter 2, article 22 of our constitution. Jobkorea, a job portal site, conducted a survey on Constitution Day to check how well people have kept the laws. According to the survey, one of the laws that workers have violated the most was the copyright law, which is ranked second. The copyright has a wide range from what we commonly enjoy in our daily lives, such as songs, movies, or TV shows, to what we normally use every day, such as textbooks and the internet. However, we might live routinely without noticing the border of the violations of the copyright law. -Ed.


The history of the copyright

  The origins of the copyright law started in the 16th century during Queen Anne's rule in England. The copyright law was legislated to protect publishing rights, but lately, the real meaning is based on the Berne Convention. Its official name is ‘Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works’, and this agreement was implemented or the purpose of protecting copyrights between signatories so that all the copyrights can be protected if someone is a citizen of the signatories. Korea also signed this Berne Convention in 1996. As of now, about 180 countries are protected under this convention.

The meaning of copyright and its law

  The copyright is a right that copyrighters can have about their own creative products. According to the Korean copyright laws, the reason the copyright law was legislated was to develop culture and related industries by protecting copyright and aiming fair usage of creative products.

The role of the copyright

  Each person has a number of thoughts and ideas, and they are as diverse as the astronomical figures. Creative products made from those thoughts and ideas can be songs, movies, animations, novels, dissertations, or business items. Without the original thoughts and ideas of creators, creative products couldn’t exist, so we should respect their products under the copyright laws. However, if there were no law related to copyrights, unauthorized usage or distribution would be rampant and opportunities to make new products would decrease. If it got worse, there might not be any more entertainment at all, so we wouldn’t enjoy our lives anymore. Therefore, we should protect their rights and profits under the copyright laws.
  For example, singers or songwriters bring in their incomes from their copyrighted songs. G-dragon, a Big-bang member, annually earns about 800 million won from copyright profits. Singer Jang Bum-joon’s song ‘Cherry Blossom Ending’ gives him huge copyright profits every spring season. The Korea Copyright Commission(KCC) conducted a campaign with Melon, a music portal site, to encourage people not to use illegal downloading so that the musicians’ rights are protected.

How do people abuse the copyright laws?

  Here is a newly coined word: copyright-paparazzo. Copyright-paparazzi find people who violate copyright laws and threaten them with a lawsuit, but as long as the people give copyright-paparazzi a high settlement fee, they cancel the suit and take the money.
  Last year, there was an internet cafe where members had to post a weird video which showed a girl’s legs being hit by a cane for 3 minutes in order to use some services from the cafe. However, the funny thing was that the video was made by the cafe’s owner, and the owner accused the cafe members on a charge of infringing copyright law because the video was posted without the owner’s permission, so the owner tried to get about 300 million won as a settlement.
  One of the experts of KCC said about copyright-paparazzi, “Copyrighters can ask for proper compensation when it comes to infringements of copyrights, but when the demands become too high, it could be a problem.” He added, “Recently, cases that people might overlook about copyright infringements are fonts or image captures.”

Let’s take a look at some examples: The ignorance of copyright laws

  The copyright laws have a large and various range, and sometimes the laws are very tricky. According to an episode of ‘Children in a Copyright trap’ on the program PD Note, when people upload songs, pictures or movie posters on their cafe or blog, if it is for criticism, then it’s okay, but if it is just for fun or parodies, then it’s not allowed. In another case,  When a person who rents DVDs or books lends them to their friends or others, it’s also a big problem. What people are most confused with is about peer-to-peer sites. Even though people pay certain money for cash points in P2P sites to watch movies or download some stuff, the paid money doesn’t really go into the copyrighters’ profits.

Let us know what the copyright is exactly

  As long as we know the copyrights and copyright laws correctly, the problems will decrease. One of the experts from Copyright Protection Center(CPC) introduced some educational programs about copyrights. “Our CPC’s clean-team is conducting  copyright clean forums for copyright protection to improve awareness of copyrights.” She added, “Our CPC has been left in charge of the works from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. We collect illegal files and discard them, so people can approach copyrighted products in the correct way. Also, the number of illegally copied textbooks is growing, so we seriously conduct crackdowns on those problems in March or September. Illegal bookbinding or copying textbooks hinder cultural contents’ development, so in order to protect publishers’ rights, they should be prohibited under the copyright laws.”

By Oh Byung-hyun
bh37@cbnu.ac.kr
By Kim Soo-min
sm36@cbnu.ac.kr