소유자의 저작물 파괴와 저작권

Destruction of copyrighted works by the Owner of copyrighted works and Ownership of the Copyright

The object of copyright is an abstract and ideal concept from legal perspective of Korean copyright which provides that "works" shall mean creative productions in which human ideas or emotions are expressed. Copyrighted works are generally mediated by tangible things. The copyright about works and the right of property about things mediated copyrighted works are entirely different rights from the viewpoints of Korean Civil law and Korean Copyright law. According to Korean Civil Law, an owner can use, make a profit, and transfer his or her own tangible things within the act. On the other hands, §13 of Korean Copyright Act provides that the author shall have the right to preserve the integrity of the content, form, and title of his work. That right is named right to Preserve the Integrity that is a kind of moral right in Korean copyright legal system. If anyone destructs a copyrighted works completely, the author can insist on his or her right to preserve the integrity of works and the owner of the works can maintain his or her own ownership of the works. In result, the conflict between the property right of the works and the copyright of the works will rise because there are no superiority and inferiority in Korean Legal system. German Court has ever decided that the owner can destruct the copyrighted works entirely, even though the owner of copyright may maintain his or her right to preserve the integrity. We have no experience about this conflict until now. The decisions of German Court make the suggestion that we can solve the conflict problems. In spite of the solution, according to my thought, we need to amend the copyright act like artcle 15 of Swiss Copyright Act.