There going to be 47 North Korean publications of a creative nature published "legally" in South Korea. The North's copyright office and the South's "Intra-Korean Economic and Cultural Cooperation Foundation" negotiated the deal, which becomes the first official transaction between North and South relating to intellectual rights.
The agreement is more than just an official business deal. It should be noted that while negotiating this, the North essentially came to recognize the private ownership of intellectual products. That was of course only at the most basic level and it is limiting to have all negotiation rights rest with the state, but that does not take away from the significance of what has been agreed. Things will naturally move to a higher level as copyright deals become more frequent.
Also important is the fact that the two sides are sharing intellectual property that can help in feeling and understanding North Korean society. All the publications subject to the deal are creative material such as poetry, fiction, and children's stories, all works that show you the realities faced by society there and the dreams, troubles, customs, and changing sensibilities of people up North. These books will do better at showing what North Korean society is like than economic indicators, sociological structures, and other academic research.
Finally, while right now the flow is one-way, the deal means there is progress in the direction of mutual cultural exchange. Just about ten years ago it was impossible for printed matter to travel in either direction, but now copyright exchange has legal basis and established practice.
The problem becomes what happens from now on. Publishing houses are only interested in material that "sells well," and you cannot blame them for that. The North has published much that can be considered part of Korean culture's intellectual infrastructure, mostly translations of voluminous historical source material such as the Joseon Wangjo Sillok and academic studies of pre-modern history. Those are works that have little commercial marketability. The government, therefore, needs to approach this as part of official policy. This deal will be help the South come to share in the North's intellectual property and in creating deeper exchange between both.
The Hankyoreh, 17 January 2006.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
