교육정보화를 위한 저작권법의 과제

A Subject on the Copyright Act for the Informationalization of Education

Digitalization of information cooperated with the emergence of electronic communication networks has significantly changed the ways in education and E-learning. Education is the means by which we develop our nation's human resources. In this information age, the scope of education has reached the levels of both cooperation and competition on a global scale. In Korea society, the national capability to meet its domestic and international challenges or responsibilities is directly dependent on its educational capacity. These standpoints on education have been reflected on the copyright law which regulates the limitation of proprietary rights on the copyrighted works for educational purposes. The primary purpose of the Copyright Act is to protect the rights of the copyright holders and encourage the fair use of copyrighted works. Furthermore, it can contribute to the development of the society of education. For the purpose of facilitating the fair use of the copyright works, the exclusive rights of copyright holders are limited to a certain extent, especially when educational institutions wish to use the works. The regulations for the limitation of copyright are currently applied to the utilization of copyrighted materials for educational purposes. The intellectual information has a particular nature to produce the real meaning and the value of itself only when it exists as a social co-ownership source. Therefore, if we think of the regulations as an excessively strengthened copyright as it is, we cannot avoid weakening the right to make the best of the intellectual sources. As a result, of course, we cannot help taking a major hurdle against the cultural development of this society of education. It is the reason why we have to reduce the side effects of the excessively strengthened intellectual copyright in this period of the revision of the copyright act. This paper undertakes a thorough comparative study of the issues of copyright works, and this study focuses on the scope of the utilization of copyright works for educational purposes in three countries. It examines the laws of United States, Japan, Germany to see how the laws expand the educator's rights in utilizing copyrighted materials. The utilization of copyrighted works for educational purposes limits the rights of copyright holders, which does not apply to all of the cases. However, in the cases of digital works, the utilization of copyrighted works for educational purposes has raised new issues on the copyright. The rights should be understood by users as well as the holders. On the other hand, diverse measures are required to provide benefits for both copyright holders and the users in educational field. Currently, with the trend of the revision, congress in Korea has strived to address multiple policies in developing the law, but foremost issue is the quest for the balance between its owners and users.