SOUTH KOREA Law and Practice Contributed by: Dongju Kwon, Chulgun Lim, Sejung Lee and Yoon Sun Kim, Yoon & Yang LLC
• audiovisual works; • graphic works; • software works; • derivative works; and • compilation works.
employment agreement or rules do not provide oth - erwise. Work Not Created by a Human There are currently no explicit regulations or court precedents on whether a work created by AI soft - ware or animals may qualify as a copyrightable work. However, the Korea Copyright Commission (KCC) has taken the position that output created mechanically by generative AI (GenAI) rather than by a human, and output based on human prompts that do not exhibit human creative contribution do not constitute “works” under the CA and are therefore not eligible for regis - tration. The KCC provides the following examples of situa - tions in which human creative contribution may be recognised: • when a GenAI output, generated by a user who inputs their copyrighted work as the prompt, reflects the creativity of that copyrighted work; • when the additional work performed by a user on an autonomous output – such as modification, addition or deletion – displays creativity; and • when creativity is present in the selection, arrange - ment or composition of an autonomous output. Joint Authorship A joint work is created when the contributions of two or more persons combine to form an inseparable work. It must meet the following requirements: • two or more authors contributed to the creation of the work; • the authors intended to jointly create the work (ie, joint authors); and • the contribution of each author cannot be sepa - rately exploited. Moral rights and economic rights in a joint work may be exercised only by the unanimous consent of all joint authors. A joint author cannot transfer or encum - ber their rights in the joint work without the consent of the other joint author(s), which must not be withheld in bad faith. However, a joint author may seek injunctive or precautionary remedies for the joint work without the consent of the other joint author(s).
However, this list is not comprehensive, and copyright protection can be awarded to any work that meets the general requirements under the CA. Industrial designs are entitled to copyright protection if they qualify as works of applied art – ie, when they are able to be reproduced in the same shape on arti - cles and be separable from the articles wherein they are used. 3.2 Essential Elements of Copyright Protection A work must have creativity and express human thoughts and emotions in order to qualify for copy - right protection. “Creativity” is recognised if the work is an original expression created by the author without copying expressions of others. The copyright protec - tion requirements apply to all works of authorship. Fixation is not required for copyright protection, and unrecorded improvisations can be protected. 3.3 Copyright Authorship Authorship An “author” is the person who created the work under the CA; those who assisted in or provided the driv - ing force for the work’s creation are not authors. The authorship is presumed if a person whose real name or well-known pseudonym is commonly indicated as the author’s name on the work or public performance or transmission of the work. Work for Hire and Corporate Authorship A “work for hire” is created by a person engaged by an employer under the employer’s initiative. However, a work created by an employee does not qualify as a work for hire if it is created beyond the employee’s work scope without the employer’s initiative, supervi - sion or control. Any entity may qualify as the author if the work is a “work for hire” published in their name, and the
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