온라인디지털콘텐츠산업발전법 제정의 의의 및 그 효과에 관한 소고 = A Study on the Enactment of the Online Digital Contents Industry Promotion Act of 2001

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The digital contents which has creativeness has been protected by the Copyright Act in Korea. However, the contents which was not creative could not have been protected so far on the ground that it lacks creativeness, one of the prerequisite for copyright protection, even though the industry invested much time and effort in digitalizing the contents. Until recently, they had no remedies against illegal reproduction of their contents through the network. Considered these situations, the Ministry of Information and Communication initiated to enact a law to protect digital contents providers and to promote digital contents industries. The newly enacted law, which is to enter into force on the 15th of July 2002, protects digital contents providers on the basis of unfair competition rules rather than giving them rights of IPR holders. The protection is for five years from the date of marking after its production. By the birth defect, the act already contains several problems from the beginning. The Act is regulating promotion of digital contents industries and protection of contents producers in the same law, which is quite a rare case. Since there is no clear definition of considerable effort and serious violation in the Act itself that we have to wait and see how the courts interpret these words in actual cases. Furthermore, this Act cannot cover off-line distribution of illegal reproduction because the title of the Act itself limits the coverage of the law. It may also cause some problems in international perspectives: the Act provides various ways of supporting digital contents industries which may not be in conformity with the present international trade law on subsidies. It remains to be seen how this Act will actually operate in the near future. Through the enactment of Implementing Decree and Rules and by the establishment of Basic Plans, I wish this Act will become more clearer and that it will help promotion of Korean digital contents industries.