SOUTH KOREA Law and Practice Contributed by: Dongju Kwon, Chulgun Lim, Sejung Lee and Yoon Sun Kim, Yoon & Yang LLC
Alienability A copyright owner may wholly or partially transfer the economic rights. They may authorise others to exploit the economic rights and provide the economic rights as a security. Upon a copyright owner’s death, the economic rights are inherited pursuant to the Civil Code. Moral rights are inalienable and cannot be transferred nor inherited. 3.6 Collective Rights Management Systems The collective rights management system in Korea allows the existence of several collecting societies/ agencies, including the Korea Music Copyright Asso - ciation. The collecting societies/agencies manage rights, including economic rights, exclusive publica - tion rights and neighbouring rights. The collecting societies/agencies enter into licence agreements with the users on behalf of the copyright owners. They collect licence fees from the users and distribute the amount to the copyright owners, minus the administrative fees. The rates or amounts of licence fees and administrative fees must be approved by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The collecting societies may directly file a lawsuit against an infringer Copyright registration is not a prerequisite for copy - right protection, but it can establish a presumption of facts stated in the registration certificate (eg, identity of the copyright owner and date of creation). The reg - istration is publicly available and anyone infringing a registered copyright is presumed to have been neg - ligent. on behalf of the copyright owner. 3.7 Copyright Registration Domestic and foreign entities can obtain copyright registration without needing to appoint an agent for the registration filing. No formality is required for the creation and exercise of copyright in Korea.
The profit distribution from the exploitation of a joint work can be determined by the agreement of the joint authors; otherwise, profits are distributed based on the proportion of the contributions of the joint authors. If such proportion is unclear, it is presumed to be equal. 3.4 Copyright Rights Economic Rights The CA gives the copyright owner the economic right to: • reproduce the copyrighted work; • perform the copyrighted work publicly; • publicly transmit the copyrighted work; • publicly display originals or copies of architectural works, works of fine art or pictorial works; • distribute originals or copies of the copyrighted work; • lease phonograms published for commercial pur - poses; and • create derivative works from the copyrighted work by means of translation, adaptation, arrangement or video production. Moral Rights The CA gives the copyright owner the moral right of: • determination of whether to publish the work; • attribution, allowing the copyright owner to be indicated as the author of the work under their real name or pseudonym in the originals or copies of the work or any publications of the work; and • integrity, allowing the copyright owner to prevent distortions of the work or its format or title. 3.5 Term of Protection and Termination Economic Rights and Moral Rights The economic rights generally last for the author’s life plus 70 years; for a joint work, the term is 70 years from the death of the last deceased author. For anony - mous works, works bearing pseudonyms that are not widely known, works for hire and audiovisual works, such term is 70 years from publication. However, the term for works for hire or audiovisual works may expire 70 years from creation. Moral rights last for the life of the author.
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