Discussions on the Copyright Issues of the Intangible Heritage Archive

Intangible heritage institutions are currently building intangible heritage archives for a varietyof purposes, and numerous copyright issues arise in the process. Although the intangibleheritage itself is mostly in the public domain, the intangible heritage information newly createdusing the intangible heritage is protected by copyright.In order to protect the intangible cultural heritage of the traditional community and tocoordinate its interests, various discussions have been carried out with WIPO as a center anda treaty has been drafted. The adoption of the treaty draft is unclear, however, because thereare still differences of opinion among the member states regarding the concept of traditionalcultural expressions and the eligibility of protection, beneficiaries, scope of protection andexceptions. In Korea, intellectual property right issues of intangible heritage have been studiedby researchers for many years. In particular, since 2010, more comprehensive discussions havebeen held on the basis of intangible cultural heritage-related organizations.However, there are still challenges to be solved. First, it is necessary to consider how toreflect the interests of intangible heritage communities that are not protected by the currentintellectual property norm system through research ethics and guidelines. And producers ofintangible cultural heritage information and records are protected by the current copyrightlaw, so it is necessary to recognize their copyrights and take appropriate action in the processof building the archive. The copyright issue of orphaned works is difficult to solve through theexisting copyright law regulations, and it is necessary to revise the law in the future.