The Fifth Seoul-Type Standard Contract
Two Types for Workers and Freelancers
"Promoting and Expanding in Cooperation with the Private Sector"
The development of the 'Webtoon Assistant Artist Standard Contract,' which supports webtoon assistant artists who receive poor treatment to fairly conclude labor contracts and protect their labor rights, has been completed. This is an initiative by the Seoul Metropolitan Government to foster a fair contract culture within the rapidly growing webtoon industry and to protect vulnerable labor rights holders.
According to Seoul City on the 17th, the newly released 'Webtoon Assistant Artist Standard Contract' is the fifth Seoul-type standard contract following those for fitness trainers, caregivers, and others.
Typically, creating a single webtoon involves 7 to 9 stages such as script (conte), rough sketch (daesaeng), line art, coloring, and retouching. A 'webtoon assistant artist' refers to an artist who, after contracting with a specific webtoon author or business entity, is responsible for individual parts of the webtoon. Until now, many webtoon assistant artists have often entered into verbal contracts or proceeded with work without proper consultation, resulting in unclear scopes of work and sometimes unreasonable demands from production companies or authors. In particular, even the agreed payment dates were not honored, making salary payments uncertain.
The Seoul-type standard contract is a customized contract developed and distributed by Seoul City for non-regular workers such as freelancers and labor providers whose contract standards are unclear. Previously, four types have been distributed for fitness trainers, caregivers, platform-based visiting lesson workers, and one-person media content creators.
The contract is divided into two types: one for workers and one for freelancers. The worker contract (one type) can be applied when the individual qualifies as a worker under the Labor Standards Act, while the freelancer service contract is for assistant artists who provide labor without belonging to a company. The freelancer service contract is produced in two formats: a basic version (9 pages) and a simplified version (2 pages). The simplified version consists of four types based on payment methods: ▲full lump-sum payment ▲installment payment ▲fixed manuscript fee ▲per-cut manuscript fee.
Before developing the contract, Seoul City conducted a survey on contract methods and found that 26% were labor contracts and 74% were service contracts. Based on this, through comprehensive reviews including analysis of similar standard contract cases, consultations with field stakeholders and legal experts, two types of contracts were developed.
The contract includes clauses on ▲payment (wages) methods ▲mutual obligations and cooperation ▲non-performance of obligations ▲inspection ▲career certification ▲ownership of intellectual property rights, among others. It is designed to set payment methods and delivery/inspection deadlines through mutual agreement, and to allow assistant artists to use works they participated in as part of their portfolio, considering the nature of webtoon assistant artists' work. The newly developed standard contract can be downloaded from the Seoul City website and the Seoul Labor Portal. Anyone interested, including webtoon authors, business owners, and citizens, can freely use it. Seoul City plans to additionally distribute an explanatory booklet to help understand the standard contract within this year.
Song Ho-jae, Director of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Civil Labor Bureau, stated, "Through this Webtoon Assistant Artist Standard Contract, we expect the protection of rights and the establishment of a fair contract foundation to achieve coexistence and development in the webtoon industry." He added, "We will continue to develop standard contracts and work with the private sector to promote and expand fair contract culture."
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