SOUTH KOREA Law and Practice Contributed by: Dongju Kwon, Chulgun Lim, Sejung Lee and Yoon Sun Kim, Yoon & Yang LLC
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 anonymous 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. Alienability A copyright owner may wholly or partially trans - fer the economic rights. They may authorise others to exploit the economic rights and pro - vide 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 trans - ferred 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 Association. The collecting societies/ agencies manage rights, including economic rights, exclusive publication rights and neigh - bouring 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 admin - istrative fees must be approved by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The collecting societies may directly file a lawsuit against an infringer on behalf of the copyright owner. 3.7 Copyright Registration Copyright registration is not a prerequisite for copyright 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 registration is pub - licly available and anyone infringing a registered copyright is presumed to have been negligent. Domestic and foreign entities can obtain copy - right registration without needing to appoint an agent for the registration filing. No formality is required for the creation and exer - cise of copyright in Korea. 3.8 Copyright Application Requirements An author may apply for copyright registration for copyrightable works. The application should be submitted to KCC with the following attached: • a copy of the work; • a copy of the author’s ID; and
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