12 Consecutive Years of Surplus
Record-High Surplus in Cultural and Artistic Copyrights
On the 25th, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that the copyright trade balance for music, video, games, software, and other sectors achieved a surplus of 3.36 billion USD (approximately 4.9365 trillion KRW) according to the '2024 Intellectual Property Special Classification Statistics' released by the Bank of Korea on the 19th. This figure represents an increase of about 29% compared to the previous year, marking the 12th consecutive year of trade surplus since 2013, thanks to the continuous export of K-content.
Contents from broadcasters and productions worldwide are being promoted to buyers at the 'International Broadcasting Video Market (BCWW) 2024.' Photo by Yonhap News
The copyright trade balance is broadly divided into 'cultural and artistic copyrights' and 'research & development and software copyrights.' The former, which includes music, video, literature, theater, and fine arts, turned to a surplus for the first time in 2022 and recorded a record-high surplus of 520 million USD (approximately 763.9 billion KRW) last year. Thanks to this, the overall intellectual property trade balance also posted a record-high surplus of 1.38 billion USD (approximately 2.0274 trillion KRW). The latter, which covers games, research & development, and databases, maintained a stable surplus flow of 2.84 billion USD (4.1725 trillion KRW).
Jung Hyang-mi, Director of the Copyright Bureau at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, stated, "With robust copyright policies, our content expanding overseas is sufficiently protected, and as a result, this leads to an increase in our copyright trade balance. We will further refine copyright laws, systems, and overseas copyright protection policies with greater care."
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