영상저작물의 권리귀속 문제에 관한 일 고찰

A Study on Who Obtains Ownership of Audiovisual Works

Audiovisual production differs in several respects from traditional works such as novels or music. Whereas authors of novels or writers of music usually create literary or artistic works individually, audiovisual production is collective in nature. Various creative collaborators, such as screenwriters, directors, and other collaborative teams, participate. As a result, it is much more difficult to determine who the actual author of a particular work is. At the same time, audiovisual works are very expensive to create, produce and distribute, but their commercial success is uncertain. Therefore, the distribution may more significantly affect the overall market value of the audiovisual works than it would the value of any other works. It is very important for the audiovisual industry to license the exploitation rights of an audiovisual work in order to recoup its financial investment through sequential distribution of them in primary and ancillary markets. In order to achieve this, the audiovisual industry requires an easier means to administer the rights of audiovisual works. This can be accomplished by legislation at both international and domestic level assigning all the rights to one of the collaborators of the work. In this way, a producer may easily distribute the audiovisual work on the market without having to obtain permission from all the creative participants. In an effort to solve the need for legal regulation at international level, the Berne Convention established article 14bis concerning the rights of creative contributors to audiovisual works in Stockholm in 1967. The Berne Convention expressly provides that rights to audiovisual works are subject to the copyright laws of the country where the work has been circulated. For example, rights to a work may be granted to a producer in one country and to creative collaborators in another. Many domestic laws contain provisions regulating the ownership of audiovisual works. This article will compare the legal mechanisms of three countries - the United States, Japan and Korea- regarding the exploitation of audiovisual works. This analysis will reveal that the legislation of these three countries is similar in that the producer of audiovisual works controls the rights in the work, although the nature of ownership differs from country to country. Regarding the ownership of audiovisual works, finally, this article will take into consideration the regulation of Korean Copyright Act in more detail.