[News Terms] The 'Gureumbbang Protection Act' Highlighted by the Death of Writer Lee Woo-young

The "Cloud Bread Protection Act" is a bill proposed to support creators by providing additional compensation to authors who do not receive sufficient rewards, such as Baek Heena, the author of the creative picture book "Cloud Bread," which was published on October 20, 2004. In April 2015, then Saenuri Party lawmaker Bae Jae-jung first proposed an amendment to the Copyright Act and named it the "Cloud Bread Protection Act."

Following Representative Bae, in November 2018, Democratic Party lawmaker Noh Woong-rae, and in January 2021, fellow party member Do Jong-hwan, proposed the Cloud Bread Protection Act several times, but all were discarded due to expiration of their terms without even being discussed in the bill subcommittee.

"Cloud Bread" is characterized by creating small paper dolls by hand to produce illustrations, which are then photographed and included in the book. The story is about a brother and sister cat who float into the sky and deliver bread made of clouds to their father, who hurriedly goes to work without breakfast.

Cover of "Cloud Bread" by author Baek Heena.
Photo by Asia Economy DB

It is regarded as a highly successful picture book. It sold 400,000 copies domestically, was exported to eight countries with over 500,000 copies sold, and was also adapted into a musical and animation. It was selected as the Illustrator of the Year at Bologna in 2005 and ranked number one in the best picture books for young children in 2006. The author received the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA), known as the Nobel Prize of children's literature, in 2020.

The book's added value reached 440 billion won, but the author transferred the copyright when signing a publishing contract with Hansol Soobook Publishing in 2002, receiving only 8.5 million won as a contract fee and an additional 10 million won in support funds for exhibitions and the like. Later, Hansol Soobook revealed that its sales amounted to 2 billion won. The author filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the publisher and the animation production company but lost the case.

On the 15th, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that it would establish copyright protection measures for creators by specifying provisions related to the right to create secondary works in the standard contract for the comic field and including an obligation for prior consent in contracts involving third parties to prevent unfair contracts.

After the late Lee Woo-young, the original author of the popular comic "Black Rubber Shoes," passed away by suicide amid legal disputes over copyright, the government belatedly strengthened measures to protect creators' rights.