Korean Copyright Proposals Spark Controversy

by Mary Swire, for LawAndTax-News.com, Hong Kong

05 January 2006

Amendments to Korea's copyright laws recently presented by the Culture and Tourism Committee of the National Assembly have sparked controversy.

Under the legislation put forward late last year by the ruling party, online enterprises which allow "reproduction" or "sharing" of copyrighted content will be permitted to introduce anti-piracy measures to their services.

In addition, ISPs are likely to face penalties if they fail to shut down websites offering unauthorised access to copyrighted content.

Other measures introduced in the bill include a right for the Minister of Culture and Tourism to authorize removal of infringing content from the internet, and permission for the police and other law enforcement authorities to investigate the distribution of copyrighted content, even if the copyright holder has not lodged a complaint.

However, a number of flaws in the legislation have been pointed out by consumer rights groups.

Speaking to the Korea Times this week on behalf of the Citizens' Action Network, Kim Young-hong explained that:

"The problem is that the bill loosely defines that Internet services providing 'reproduction' and 'sharing' of digital content should be subject to regulation."

"This virtually opens the possibility of an extensive range of internet services, not only peer-to-peer (P2P) programs but even online hard-disk services and e-mail services, which are increasingly used for sharing multimedia content, being controlled excessively by copyright holders."

He concluded by observing:

"In short, the new bill is an assault on basic consumer liberties."

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