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(English Version) (1) This is a much criticized Supreme Court decision on intermediary liability for defamatory content. There were two contradictory Supreme Court decisions (2001Da36801 and 2002Da72194, see below) prior to this en banc decision on the same issue. (2) The Supreme Court held web portal sites Naver, Daum, SK Communications, and Yahoo Korea liable for the defamation of the plaintiff whom the user postings there accused of deserting a girlfriend upon the second pregnancy after he talked her into aborting the first where the girlfriend then committed a suicide. The court upheld judgments of 10 million won, 7 million won, 8 million won, and 5 million won, respectively, against these services. (3) Specifically, the court held that, barring special circumstances, (a) the intermediary shall be liable for...

(1) This decision applied the rule of 2008Da53812 (see below), the leading case on intermediary liability, on copyright infringement. The defendant was Yahoo Korea and the plaintiff sued Yahoo Korea for copyright infringement. The issue here was whether Yahoo Korea was liable for copyright infringing materials posted by subscribers on its website. (2) The Supreme Court held in favor of the defendant. According to the Supreme Court, OSPs cannot be held liable for merely allowing subscribers to post copyright infringing materials and enabling the materials to be searched on their portals. OSPs are only liable for aiding the infringement for not taking necessary measures under three conditions: (1) illegality of the copyright infringing material is clear; (2) the OSP either received a notice from the right holder or was...

This is a decision on the notice and takedown system under Article 44-2 of ICNA (see above). The Constitutional Court found that the provisions do not infringe upon the freedom of expression under Article 21 of the Constitution because, although the provision, by requiring the service provider to take some actions on all takedown requests, has the danger of abating lawful information, the public interest in taking down unlawful information prevails.

Established under the Act on the Establishment and Operation of Korea Communications Commission (KCCA) in addition to the KCC, the KCSC, consisting of nine members, shall deliberate on matters falling under Article 44-7 of ICNA (see above), and deliberate and issue correction requests on information prescribed by the Presidential Decree “as necessary for nurturing sound communications ethics,” and enact related communications deliberation standards (see above.

Statutes of the Republic of Korea (English), http://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_service/main.do The Supreme Court of Korea (English), http://eng.scourt.go.kr/eng/main/Main.work The Constitutional Court of Korea (English), http://english.ccourt.go.kr/cckhome/eng/index.do The Korea Communications Standard Commission (English), http://www.kocsc.or.kr/eng/Message.php The Korea Copyright Commission (English), http://www.copyright.or.kr/eng Korea Internet Self-governance Organization: KISO (Korean), http://www.kiso.or.kr