Supreme Court of Korea Ruled Music DRM Does Not Violate Competition Law – Abuse of Dominant Market Position in Mobile Phone and Music Download Service

February 18, 2012

There have been ongoing disputes as to whether Digital Rights Management(DRM) does violate competition law.  By using a DRM, the company can tie the playback of certain digital files to its own IT device.  The problem arises when the company has a dominant market position, because it entails an argument from competitors that the company has abused its dominant market position to distort a free competition at the market.

In November last year, the Supreme Court of Korea firstly issued a ruling addressing this issue.  The case dates back to 2006, when Fair Trade Commission(FTC) of South Korea ordered SK Telecom, the largest mobile carrier company and music download service provider, to lift up a DRM which had prevented the purchasers of MP3 mobile phone of SK Telecom from playing MP3 files downloaded from other online music store than SK Telecom’s online music store.  SK Telecom had appealed the FTC’s decision to the court.

At the heart of this lawsuit is whether SK Telecom’s use of DRM does constitute an abuse of its dominant market position under Korean Competition law.  In this regard, the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act(MRFTA) of Korea provides that any market dominant enterpriser shall not commit an act of either (i) unreasonably interfering with the business activities of other enterprisers or (ii) unreasonably doing considerable harm to the interests of consumers.  The FTC found SK Telecom’s using a DRM Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Anti-Trust/Competition, Entertainment Business, Entire Entries, IT, Legal News, Litigation | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by chungwi

Seoul Court Ruled Jin-Young Park, Famous Korean Music Composer and Producer, Is Guilty of Plagiarism – Korean Copyright Law on Music Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement

February 11, 2012

On February 10, Seoul Central District Court ruled that Jin-Young Park, one of the most influential music producer and composer, had plagiarized another Korean composer’s song.  The defendant Mr. Park is well-known as the co-owner of JYP Entertainment, one of the top Korean music production company(Gi-Huek-Sa).  He had produced numerous albums for famous K-Pop artists including, but not limited to, Rain, G.O.D, Wonder Girls.

The plaintiff Shin-Il Kim, a K-Pop composer, had filed a lawsuit against Jin-Young Park on July 2011, claiming Mr. Park’s song titled “Someday”, sung by IU, had infringed his song titled “To My Man” and he is entitled to a compensation of approximately 90,000USD.

The Court found that four bars from the chorus of defendant’s song is substantially similar to that of plaintiff’s song which constitutes a copyright infringement and ordered the defendant to pay approximately 20,000USD to the plaintiff as a remedy.

Under Korean copyright law, a claim for plagiarism and copyright infringement will lie when the defendant had an access to the copyrighted work of plaintiff and there exists a substantial similarity between the two works.  With regard to the first element, Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by chungwi

Apple’s Korean Office Paid Compensation to a South Korean User for iPhone Location Tracking – So Does This Mean Korean Court Made an End to the Legal Fight?

July 15, 2011

It was reported that last month Apple’s South Korean office paid $945 of compensation to a South Korean iPhone user for the breaching of privacy by the controversial iPhone user location tracking.  Here is the detail from Reuters.

By the way, some news providers reported that this was the ruling from a Korean district court.  I, as a Korean lawyer, think that statement is half right and half wrong.  Basically it is true that the court issued a ruling which ordered the Apple Korea to pay $945 to the user.  But this was not the formal trial case, but a Request for a Payment Order case.  Payment order is much convenient & simplified legal procedures for claimant to get a judgment from the court compared to a formal lawsuit.  Once a request filed, the Korean court does not question the debtor (in this case, the Apple Korea) and issue a Payment Order within 2 or 4 weeks (in certain courts, within a few days). This payment order, a sort of ruling, asks the opposing party to choose whether to admit the claim as written on the request or to make an objection.  If no objection has been raised from the opposing party within 2 weeks, then Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by chungwi

Court Rulings on the legality of Internet-Based TV Recording Service and Time/Place-Shifting Device Hosting Service – Korea, Japan, Singapore and the U.S.

February 27, 2011

There exist growing needs for consumers to watch TV broadcastings from any places and by any ways they want.  In response to these needs, several new business models have come into; for example, an Internet TV recording and/or streaming service, RS-DVR, SlingBox and any other place/time-shifting devices hosting services.  But the problem is that copyright holders, the TV broadcasting companies, are fiercely objecting to these new business models contending they are infringing their copyrights.  It is quite interesting for an IP lawyer to see how the courts from various countries have found the answer to this legal issue.

Lets’ start with the situation in South Korea, where I’m practicing the law.  Actually there have been two cases related to this issue; Ental TV case and MyTV case.  Ental TV was an Internet-based TV recording service.  The registered users paid some amount of fees to the service provider and the service provider recorded TV broadcastings on its server at the request of the individual users with its automated software program, then converted it into the PC file format and sent the file to the user via Internet.  On April 30, 2009, the Seoul High Court ruled this Ental TV service infringed copyright of the TV Broadcasters.  The court found that it was the service provider, not an individual user, who recorded and copied the TV program, because the service provider owned and managed all the facilities used in recording the TV program.  Also the Court added that even though it was the individual user who copied the TV program, the very act of copying Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by chungwi

Seoul Court Ruled Uploading a 15-Second Video of Toddler’s Dancing to a Famous Singer’s Song Is Not a Copyright Infringement and the Copyright Holder Who Sent an Unfair Take Down Notice Should Pay a Monetary Compensation

October 5, 2010

There have been increasing conflicts between the free expression and the copyright arising out of a UCC, a user-created content, posted on the internet site.  For example, in the United States, there was a legal dispute concerning a woman’s 29-second YouTube video of her toddler dancing to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy”. Copyright holder to the Prince’s song alleged the video infringed the song’s copyright.

Almost the same lawsuit had been filed in South Korea. In Korea, a father uploaded to his blog operated by Naver, the largest internet portal site, a video capturing his 5 year-old daughter singing and dancing to a famous Korean female singer(Dambi Sohn)’s song, titled “Crazy”. But the video was taken down by the portal site operator upon a request from the copyright holder to the song alleging the video is a copyright infringement as it was used the song without permission. Then the father filed both a declaratory lawsuit that uploading the video did not constitute a copyright infringement and a monetary compensation lawsuit for mental damages which he suffered from the take down of the video he’d made.

On February 18, 2010, the Seoul Southern District Court sided with the father. The court ruled that uploading a video at issue did not constitute a copyright infringement because it fell within the scope of “the quotation from works made public” under Article 28 of the Copyright Act, which Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by chungwi

[Q&A: Family Law] When Foreign Couples Divorce and Get Married in Korea

September 1, 2010

Q) I have some questions about marriage and divorce law in Korea regarding two internationals living in Korea-one is a U.S. citizen, the woman is neither a citizen of Korea nor the U.S.  The woman was forced into a first marriage, against her will, when she lived in her home country.  Can she divorce in absentia and then re-marry in Korea?

A) The Korean court permits international divorce lawsuit basically if the both foreign parties are living in Korea.  If the husband does not reside in Korea, as your question, the divorce lawsuit can be accepted only when she fails to locate him or he answers the lawsuit filed under Korean court.

Regarding the governing law, the divorce case shall be governed in the following order under Korean law:

  1. the same law of nationality of both spouses
  2. the same law of habitual residence of both spouses
  3. the law of the place where is most closely connected with both spouses.

The Korean court shall decide Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by chungwi

[Q&A: Divorce Law] Does Being Separated for Many Years Itself Make It Easy to Get Divorced under Korean Law?

August 18, 2010

Q) Most of my friends say if you’ve got separated for many years, it is easy to apply for a divorce.  Is that true?

A) Basically being separated for many years is, by itself, not an justifiable cause for a judicial divorce under Korea divorce law.  The key issue will be why both of you have been separated.  If it is because of your husband’s violence and/or maltreatment, you’re surely entitled to request a divorce decree to a Korean Family court, even if you’re separated for only 1 day.  To the contrary, if you’ve maliciously Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by chungwi

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