Changwon Criminal Attorney | A Client Facing Criminal Punishment Under the Copyright Act Defended With a Suspended Sentence

The Changwon criminal attorney ascertained the detailed circumstances of the client's case.

The client was the director running a professional academy,

In order to prepare students for examinations, he scanned the textbooks and problems of another academy posted on the internet to create reproduced files, and posted these on the internet site of the client's academy.

The other academy that discovered this reported the client for copyright infringement.

The client requested Daeryun's assistance, asking only to be spared an actual custodial sentence.

The Changwon criminal attorney explained the Copyright Act that could apply to the client.

🔗Copyright refers to the right held by the author who created a ‘work’ such as a poem, novel, music, art, film, play, or computer program. Like real property, it can be sold, inherited, and also leased.

The law that protects this is precisely the Copyright Act.

Not everyone who creates a work can receive the protection of the Copyright Act. The types of protected works are as follows.

- Literary works: poems, novels, essays, scripts, theses, etc.

- Musical works: works expressed through sound, including songs directly performed or sung

- Dramatic works: plays, dance, musicals, etc.

- Artistic works: paintings, designs, calligraphy, sculpture, crafts, etc.

- Architectural works: buildings, models for architecture, design drawings, etc.

- Photographic works: works expressed by photographic means

- Cinematographic works: films, advertisements, video game footage, etc.

- Diagrammatic works: maps, charts, sketches, models, etc.

- Computer program works: works expressed as a series of instructions or commands used directly or indirectly within a computer

- Compilation works: compilations whose selection, arrangement, or composition of materials has creativity

A violation of the Copyright Act results in the following criminal punishment.

From the police investigation stage, the client fully admitted his wrongdoing and was spending time deeply reflecting on and repenting for the offense.

The attorney also argued that the client had at least monetarily made up for the harm suffered by the victim, and that, after reaching a settlement, the victim stated that they did not wish for the client to be punished.

The attorney argued that the client's copyright infringement took place in a limited space, namely an internet cafe that only the client's academy students could join, and that it was not a widespread infringement such as distributing the victim's work to an unspecified large number of people.