[Inside Chodong]Cloud Bread, Gomjeong Gomusin, and What Comes Next...

Writers' Rights Undermined by Unfair Contracts
Copyright Law Amendment Stalled in the National Assembly

On the 11th, Lee Woo-young, the cartoonist who created the comic 'Gomjeong Gomu-shin,' passed away. Since 2019, the artist had been engaged in a prolonged copyright lawsuit with the animation production company Hyeongseol & Co. According to the bereaved family, despite being the original creator, Lee expressed frustration over not being allowed to use the characters he created for Gomjeong Gomu-shin and being excluded from secondary derivative work-related business ventures.

Once again, we have encountered a situation where someone must express injustice and grievance through death to momentarily draw attention and create an opportunity to discuss countermeasures belatedly. We have lost one artist this way and are reminded of the copyright law amendment bill, nicknamed the 'Gureumbbang Protection Act,' which has repeatedly appeared and disappeared over the past few years.

Baek Hee-na’s 'Gureumbbang' is a work recognized for its outstanding artistic quality and beloved by readers, having sold 400,000 copies domestically and over 500,000 copies in eight countries overseas. It has also been adapted into musicals and animations, generating an estimated added value of over 400 billion KRW. However, due to a contract with Hansol Soobook in 2002, the author received only 8.5 million KRW as an advance and about 10 million KRW in exhibition support funds.

This is due to a lump-sum contract where the publisher pays the author a fixed amount and monopolizes all additional profits derived from the use of the copyrighted work thereafter. Baek was unable to focus on creation for seven years due to the wounds caused by the 'Gureumbbang' contract and filed a copyright return lawsuit against the publisher in 2017 but lost in 2020.

Fortunately, Baek Hee-na produced successful follow-up works such as 'Jangsu-tang Seonnyeonim' in 2012 and 'Alsatang' in 2017. In 2020, she won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA), known as the 'Nobel Prize of children's literature,' beating 240 candidates from 67 countries, becoming the first Korean recipient. The prize money of about 600 million KRW helped cover litigation costs and enabled her comeback.

There have been voices opposing the claim from the publishing and performance industries that the one-time payment contracts were the authors’ own choice to gain opportunities to meet the public, and raising issues about the unilateral and unfair nature of copyright contract terms proposed by copyright users who hold the dominant position.

Accordingly, since the copyright law amendment bill, nicknamed the 'Gureumbbang Protection Act,' was proposed to the National Assembly’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee in April 2015, it was reintroduced in November 2018 but was discarded without discussion in the bill subcommittee due to expiration of the term. In the 21st National Assembly, copyright law amendment bills were repeatedly proposed in November 2020, January 2021, and September last year, but they remain pending.

According to the National Assembly’s legislative information system, as of the 30th, there are a total of 14,546 bills pending in the National Assembly, of which 30 are copyright law amendment bills proposed and pending in the Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee. Among the amendments are contentious provisions allowing creators to claim additional compensation if unforeseen large profits arise after transferring copyright to users. However, how many of these will see the light of day without automatic expiration remains uncertain.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism also belatedly took measures on the 15th to protect creators’ rights and prevent unfair contracts by specifying provisions related to secondary derivative work creation rights in standard contracts for the cartoon sector and including mandatory prior consent clauses for third-party contracts. The copyright law amendment bill, which started as the Gureumbbang Protection Act and became the Gureumbbang and Gomjeong Gomu-shin Protection Act, is hoped not to add other works after Gureumbbang and Gomjeong Gomu-shin.