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 »


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 »


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 caseEntal 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 »


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 »


[Q&A: Entertainment Law] Can a Film Company Use a Screen Shot Which Contains My Image Without My Consent?

August 15, 2010

Q) I, as a foreign actress living in Korea, recently appeared in a Korean movie that was very successful. I had about 10 lines – 10 minutes of screen time.  Now I see that the film company has put my picture on the back of the DVD case in which the movie has just been released. They Never asked for my permission and Never paid me any money for this.  Do you believe that I have a case against the film company?  Thank You.

A) I understand a certain portion of movie screen shot is printed on the back side of the DVD case.  In this case, the producer, not an actor, has the right to the screen shot.  So the producer does Read the rest of this entry »


Chung & Partners Successfully Represented Renowned U.S company in Policing Intellectual Property in Korea

July 18, 2009

Recently, Mr. Wonil Chung, a partner at Chung & Partners, has successfully represented NHS, Inc., an internationally renowned U.S. company which sells skateboards, apparel under various trademarked brand worldwide, in policing their trademark in South Korea.  NHS, Inc. and its Korean distributor had found that counterfeits of SantaCruz, one of the NHS, Inc.’s premium brand, had been made and sold in numerous online shopping mall sites in Korea.  They requested Mr. Wonil Chung to stop them from selling the counterfeits.  Mr. Wonil Chung sent cease and desist letters to the online shopping sites which sold the counterfeits, notifying Read the rest of this entry »


Introduction to the Right of Publicity in South Korea

June 9, 2009

The legal concept of a right of publicity is relatively a new one in the Korean legal system.  About 25 years ago, affected by the U.S. entertainment law, the Korean legal society began to theorize the right of publicity, and finally the lower courts of Korea approved the right of publicity right as an exclusive property right independent from the traditional right of privacy, although there is no ruling from the Supreme Court and no express provisions therefore are yet legally established.

According to the lower court rulings, the right of publicity is defined as a property right to use the name, portrait or any other identity of a person for commercial purpose and to limit their use.  The court have ruled that the right of publicity Read the rest of this entry »


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