Copyright registration in South Korea. South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, and sharing a land border with North Korea. South Korea is a developed country with a high-income economy and is the most industrialized member country of the OECD. South Korean brands such as LG Electronics and Samsung are internationally famous and garnered South Korea’s reputation for their quality electronics and other manufactured goods. Accordingly, many businesses want to enter this market and one of the most important preparations a business needs to take before expanding to this country is to learn the procedure of copyright registration in South Korea.
Copyright in South Korea
Unlike other intellectual property rights such as trademarks, patents, industrial designs, plant varieties, etc., copyright does not need to be registered for protection but will be automatically protected from the time the works are created.
The creation must be visible in a certain material form, like content, quality, form, medium, language, published or unpublished, registered or unregistered.
Accordingly, whether registered or not, the copyright to the work will still be protected. However, the creator should still apply for copyright registration in South Korea early because early registration will give the author/owner of the work many advantages in the event of a dispute.
When unauthorized use of work occurs around the world, the owner of a work who has made a copyright registration in South Korea will not have to waste time and complicate matters with proving himself/herself to be the legitimate owner of the work.
Thereby, in order to avoid passivity, the owner of the work should make a copyright registration in South Korea immediately to protect their rights and interests when there is an infringement.
Copyright registration in South Korea
South Korea is a member country of The Berne Convention for Copyright since 1996.
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (the Berne Convention) is an international agreement governing copyright. The agreement was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland, in 1886.
As South Korea is a contracting party of the Berne Convention, any work originating in South Korea will be given copyright protection in each of the Berne Convention member countries.
In most countries, copyright protection is automatic as soon as the work existed in material form. However, the copyright registration in South Korea is critical in order for the copyright owner to obtain evidence of copyright.
Evidence of copyright is extremely important even when the works are automatically protected according to copyright law.
When registering, the work will get an application submission date, as well as information about the creation and proof of creative concept and development. This provides unambiguous proof of authorship and ownership that can’t be denied.
Proof of copyright is essential in an age when the publishing, dissemination, and theft of material is extremely easy with the exposure of the Internet.
If copyright registration is not made, copyright owners will lose a big amount of money as well as time needed to resolve issues related to copyright, proving ownership of the original work.
If the copyright owner has already registered for copyright protection to the IP office, they would have a strong legal foundation which would increase their chance of winning against the violating parties.
Documents for copyright registration in South Korea
To obtain copyright registration in South Korea, the author of the work needs to prepare the following documents:
- Declaration of copyright registration in South Korea;
- Two copies of copyrighted work;
- Documents proving the right to apply;
- Written consent of co-authors, if the work has co-authors;
- Written consent of the co-owners, if the copyright is jointly owned;
- Notarized identity card of the author or owner of the work;
- Power of Attorney, if the applicant is an authorized person;
- Notarized copy of the company’s business registration certificate (if the owner is a company).
The copyright law of South Korea
Copyright law of South Korea is regulated by the Copyright Act of 1957. It has been amended several times, with a recent 2009 revision introducing a three strikes policy for online copyright infringement.
The concept of copyright first appeared in Korean writings in 1884. However, not until 1908 did the official copyright act was written and published by the Japanese. Until 1957, the Japanese version of copyright was used in Korea for nearly 5 decades.
Then, the South Korea Government introduced its own unique copyright law in 1957, named the Copyright Act of 1957, was enacted on January 28 of that year.
The Act has had 14 amendments, including two consolidations (in 1986 and 2006). Then in 2009 and 2011, the Act was further modified, changed, amended to suit the situation at that time (The 2011 change was due to the United States–Korea Free Trade Agreement).
You can see a list of Korea IP firms here.