Copyright Vs. Copy-wrong

[This is the second post in a series on copyright and blogging in Korea. The first part : "Can I See Your License Please Sir?" on Creative Commons Licensing, can be found here.]

Admit it.

You've broken copyright law.

There was that post about Namdaemun or something, where you couldn't find a decent angle of the Seoul monument amongst the hundreds in your own photo library do you've gone to Google Images and "borrowed" a shot from there, slipped it into your post and that's that. No harm done?

Well, in reality, there is probably no harm done, especially if you are a blogger writing to keep the folks home abreast of developments here in Korea and aren't making a bajillion dollars off a bajillion page views every day. But technically you have stolen the image (or other work) and used it without permission.

You've broken copyright law.

And you're going to jail.

Well, in reality, probably not. In Korea, and most other jurisdictions, an author needs to prove that they have suffered loss as a result of your infringing their intellectual property rights, (and usually this means in terms of dollars) for you to get in trouble, either in terms of a criminal or a civil breach of copyright. Indeed the onus seems to be on the author to literally spell out what and how much they have lost and by what means for a claim of copyright breach to stick.

Then take into account the cost of lawyers and to doing business, of pursuing a humble blogger like myself without a penny to their name, and even if a large author (like a TV channel) might think twice, even about making an example of someone for future would-be copyright thieves.

Which is not to say you begin to open yourself to other interesting and dodgy practices as a result of stealing copyrighted works. At last weekend's roundtable about copyright in Korea with Tatter Media and Creative Commons Korea the following (true) scenario was outlined:

A blogger was contacted by an individual purporting to represent an author and was seeking several million won from the blogger who had used an image on their blog possibly without permission. Said blogger was told to have the money by the end of the day and that the person would call back. Over a series of days and phone calls the blogger managed to get the caller down to a few hundred thousand won before asking to see some sort of legal documentation and / or speak to these people's lawyers.

At which time the calls, and demands for money, stopped.

Turns out this was an attempt at a Vishing scheme, whereby dedicated individuals had scoured the internet looking for copyright infringement, then pretending to be acting on behalf of authors and other rights holders, were extorting money from infringers and making off with hundreds of thousands of won, if not dollars!

In all respects if you are contacted by someone about the possible misuse (or theft) of copyrighted works it should be through legal (i.e. the Police or Prosecution Service here in Korea in terms of a criminal breach of copyright) or at the very least a lawyer who can prove that they represent the people they are claiming to represent.

You've been warned.

[The third and final part of this series on copyright and blogging in Korea will look "fair use" and some practical ideas on where to find freely licensed content for use in your posts.]

[While I play one on TV, I'm not actually a real lawyer. If you have ANY questions on copyright law in Korea or are contacted by in relation to works, seek professional legal counsel forthwith.]

Comments

[Chris in South Korea]

Great series so far - so theoretically, what should a blogger do when his content / photos is being stolen? Outside of threatening with lots of hot air, is there something that can be done sans lawyer?

[Stafford]

@Chris
Besides asking the offender to take down said content, not a lot. For a criminal breach of copyright you would have to convince the police and prosecution that a case was worth bringing, and on the civil side you have to weigh your loss versus the cost of hiring a legal team to pursue the case.

I guess you could contact the offender and bullshit your way into some compensation a la the Vishing scheme detailed above...?