Enforcement Provisions Under New Copyright Act

Under the new Copyright Act passed by the National Assembly of South Korea, the following enforcement provisions have been made:

Under the previous Act no provision was made that permitted ex officio prosecution against copyright infringement until and unless a formal request was made by the copyright holder. However, under the new Act, ex officio criminal proceedings are initiated where either the infringement is habitual or even committed first time for profit or economic gains which may not be immediately apparent.

Under the new Act the Online Service Providers (OSPs) are required to themselves delete or eliminate the unlawful items or activities where it is found that the system for using copyrights is being seriously damaged. Failure to comply with such an order is subject to criminal sanctions upto USD 11,000

Under Article 104, a new provision has been made which defines duties and obligations for SOSPs whose primary purpose is to enable others to transmit copyrighted works among themselves via computer and to take rather extensive remedial measures once they have received the required notice from a rights holder against the infringement. A criminal penalty of USD30000 in the event of failure to comply has also been made in the Act.

The new act attempts to curb the significant and growing problem of online infringement.
The Act includes strong provisions with respect to SOSPs with clear comprehensive obligations to eliminate infringement after receiving the proper notice from the rights holder.
The duties and obligations for SOSps are clearly outlined and criminal sanctions are provided for failure to comply with the order.

The new Act has essentially codified an OSP’s duties for particular types of situations, leaving little to argue otherwise.

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