In this article, the cases for last one year related to copyright issues of the Korea’s contentsindustry are overviewed. Almost these cases are no more than lower court decisions because ofthe intrinsic nature of the contents copyright that it is usually more vulnerable to infringement andconsequently yields less compensation for a creator when compared to patents. These decisionsclarified that the key criteria for copyright protection of arguably original contents should bewhether others could work without the same or similar expression to that of the original creator’swork. Also, in establishing the legal requirements of content copyright infringement, the rulings areaffected by the U.S law in many aspect.However, some positions in the recent cases are unreasonable on the point as follows: Koreancourts in recent cases still insist on their past contradictory position about the copyright protectioneligibility of typeface itself and font software. The courts arguably take a negative attitude todevelop more suitable legal theories over the new internet environment when they tried to solvesome copyright disputes in online contents. When interpreting the legal effect of copyright trustagreement, a court didn’t appropriately consider the distinct feature of copyright. Even so, under the rapid transition of copyright ecosystem in which the Korea’s attitude havechanged from a passive posture of the past to a rather aggressive position for copyright protectionof the contents related to so-called Korean Culture Wave and the internet technology continuouslyevolved, the recent court judgments as a whole should be appraised as a faithful contributor tohitting the right balance which is required by Article 1, Korean Copyright Act.

Ⅰ. 이 글의 논의 대상
Ⅱ. 무엇이 저작권 보호를 받는 콘텐츠인가의 문제
Ⅲ. 저작물인 콘텐츠는 어떤 법적 보호를 받는가?
Ⅳ. 콘텐츠 저작권에 관한 여타 문제들
Ⅴ. 맺음말

• 박준석(서울대학교 법과대학/법학대학원 부교수) | Park, Jun-seok