This study aims to inquire into the character of the disputes with the musical industry over copyright issues, which are expected to rise due to the recent changes in legal environment and the rapid industrial growth in size, and to explain the intern...
This study aims to inquire into the character of the disputes with the musical industry over copyright issues, which are expected to rise due to the recent changes in legal environment and the rapid industrial growth in size, and to explain the international Private Law issues in this regard. This research would be helpful to the Korean musical industry to recognize the importance of copyright issues. It may also give directions especially in dealing with the determination of governing law and jurisdiction problem of the probable musical disputes. The recent growth rate of the musical industry up to 20% remarkably outdistances the growth rate of movie industry and now the size of its domestic market is estimated to reach $110 millions. Its absolute market size is not large as a single cultural industry however, considering its notable growth as well as the audience who are young and enthusiastic, the musical industry has a significant economical value.
The foreign musical works performed in Korea can be roughly divided into three groups, the wholly imported ones including the original performers; the licensed ones which is reproduced in Korea and required to pay the royalties ; and the translated ones.
The recently filed provisional disposition lawsuits relating to the foreign musical performance provided the starting point for this study; it is analyzed that although the legal basis had already been established by the amendments to the Copyright Law of 1996, the Korean dramatic companies keep using foreign musical works without proper contracts. Also since the United States(US) and the United Kingdom(UK) started to realize the significance of Korean musical market as an experimental stage for entering into China and other Asian countries, the persistent infringements upon the copyright have faced critical moment. Entering into the Free Trade Agreement(FTA) with US, the largest musical exporting country, in April, 2007, the disputes are expected to increase more. Moreover after the grace period of two years based on the FTA between Korea and US, the copyright term will be extended from 50 to 70 years after the death of the creator of a work and subsequently more works will be subject to protection by copyrights. The degree of protection for US copyrights are stronger than the past, as for the infringements have occurred on a commercial scale the rules of an offense subject to complaint is abolished in terms of compensation for damages and the pre-established damages is adopted and its execution procedure is reinforced.
With the changing domestic and international legal environment, the understanding of contracts regarding the legal implication over the copyright of the foreign musicals is getting more important. Therefore, in this study, the various types of complex legal relations arising out of or in connection with the circumstances of musical industry in producing, presenting, and trading will be discussed. This study deals with the legal implication of the license contracts of foreign musical copyright. The study specifically examines the nature of musical performance in legal aspect, the determination of copyright holder, and the legal relations on transfer contracts and permissions.
In this regard, it would be worthy to study the leading cases in the US which has a long musical performance history. And the cases on general copyright issues would be included case by case, since it is rare to find the Korean judicial precedents relating to musical, and the studies focused on musical among the cases on copyright issues are not yet enough to be integrated. Because the performance contents like musical have unlimited potentialities for commercialization with 'one source-multi use', the studies on the range of copyright's protection for its derivatives arising in the commercialization progress as well as the studies on the protection of musical copyright itself. Studying other countries' copyright laws and the systems would also help Korea to remove the legal and systematic obstacles in its exportation of cultural works.
Next, this study examines the international private law issues of the jurisdiction or the governing law in the international lawsuits brought by the non-licensed musical adoptions or the dissenting opinions on interpretations of the license contracts through the each example of legislation and the international convention. This work is crucial for the Korean musical industry where many copyright disputes are expected to arise because many licensed performances are imported and domestic musicals are expected to extend its range abroad at a good speed.
The Forum Shopping between the parties, who belong to the respectively different legal procedure law systems and copyright laws, is an significant factor to win a lawsuit, because the final consequence of the judgment on the merits depends on the domestic environment and the system of the copyright law of each country. Therefore, after finding the international laws, regulations and the cases of the US and Japan, the conventions suggested by WIPO(World Intellectual Property Organization) would be studied by classifying each international jurisdiction and governing law.
While the substantive parts have been largely studied so far, the procedural parts, especially the international private law issues have been seldom discussed, if ever, it has been only about the patent rights which require registration or the lawsuit for the copyright infringements in the cyber space.
Consequently, from the angle of contracts, prospecting the aspects of the international lawsuits over copyright issues would give us a substantial meaning to establish the decent models in dispute resolution out of the rapidly changing performance markets as a result of the FTA, the growing foreign investment and the growing export opportunities.