Better protection for publicity rights in South Korea

Managing IP is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 1-2 Paris Gardens, London, SE1 8ND

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2025

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

Better protection for publicity rights in South Korea

Sponsored by

hanolip-400px.png
machang-bridge-3825439.jpg

Min Son of Hanol IP & Law explains how the Korean boy band BTS helped reshape unfair competition law and the protection of publicity rights in South Korea

Readers may have heard of names such as Squid Game, Blackpink, Baby Shark, and BTS. Collectively called K-content, such K-pop, K-drama, and K-culture are gaining popularity not only in Korea, but all over the world.

With the expansion of this content’s power and social media activities such as YouTube and social networking, the number of cases in Korea where another person’s identity has been commercially misappropriated has grown. This has also led to legal disputes.

The BTS case

One of these cases involved the popular boy band BTS. A publisher produced and sold photocards and pictorials of BTS members without the authorisation of BTS’s agency. The agency sued the publisher under the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act (UCPA) before its revision.

The case went to the Supreme Court, where it was decided that the publisher’s act constituted an act of unfair competition under the supplementary catch-all provision of the old UCPA (Supreme Court Decision 2019Ma6525, March 26 2020).

When the above decision was made, Korea did not have an explicit statutory provision to protect the right commercially to use personal signs such as portraits and names of a person, so the court had to rely on the catch-all provision. However, in the above ruling, the court presented specific criteria for judgment on the infringement of publicity rights for the first time, and its rules were later reflected in the revised UCPA.

The revised UCPA

The revised UCPA came into force on June 8 2022. In the revised UCPA, an act that infringes a so-called publicity right has been added to the acts of unfair competition.

Specifically, in Article 2(1)(l) of the revised UCPA, an “act of unfair competition” includes an act of infringing another person’s economic interests by using a celebrity’s portrait, name, voice, signature, or other identifiable signs for one’s own business without authorisation and in a manner contrary to fair commercial practice or competition order.

The right holder whose rights have been infringed can claim civil damages, and a preliminary or permanent injunction. They may also pursue administrative remedies for corrective action under the UCPA.

Unfortunately, the UCPA protects only celebrities’ and famous persons’ names, portraits, etc, and the publicity right of a layperson is not protected.

In this regard, it is worth noting that a bill to amend the Copyright Act has been proposed to the National Assembly and is awaiting passage. The proposed Copyright Act expressly provides protection for the “publicity right” under the name of the article “property right including portrait right”.

“Portrait etc” is further defined as “a person’s name, portrait, voice and other traits similar thereto”. As the proposed Copyright Act does not require the portrait, etc to be widely recognised in Korea and have economic value, the expected scope of protection is wider than that of the UCPA in this regard.

Grey zone

Publicity right has long existed in a grey zone of protection. Until now, those whose publicity rights had been infringed have tried to remedy this through various channels such as trademark law, copyright law, unfair competition prevention law, and civil law damages based on constitutional infringement. But none of these has provided a satisfactory solution.

Now with the revised UCPA and the Copyright Law to be introduced, it is certain that the publicity right will be better protected in Korea.

more from across site and SHARED ros bottom lb

More from across our site

News of an alliance between two Malaysian law firms and the launch of a self-help video aimed at supporting IP professionals through menopause were also among the top talking points
Speakers at the EUIPO’s IP Mediation Conference discussed how lawyers can act in tandem with clients during mediation, and the importance of showing a united front
A report that revealed top legal LinkedIn influencers are generating hundreds of thousands in advertising value is the push lawyers need to up their social media presence
Speakers at the EUIPO’s Mediation Conference say mediation can offer a ‘cathartic’ and effective alternative to litigation that IP owners should consider
Partner Scott Sudderth says he is looking forward to building strong client relationships and expanding the firm’s patent practice
Find out which firms secured the most nominations for Managing IP’s Asia-Pacific Awards 2025, ahead of the winners being revealed on November 6
Raluca Vasilescu joins our ‘Five minutes with’ series to discuss patent mining and watercolour painting
Jan Phillip Rektorschek, founding partner at Pentarc in Germany, explains why the firm broke away from Taylor Wessing and discusses its plans for staying competitive
Royal Mail Group wins copyright and database right infringement case, in a dispute that can be linked to the history of postcodes in the UK
Managing partner Mark O’Donnell explains why people are at the centre of the Australian outfit’s investment focus and how being independent benefits the firm
Gift this article