“The weakening of copyright is the collapse of the creative ecosystem”
The backlash from the cultural and artistic community is intensifying regarding the 〈South Korea Artificial Intelligence Action Plan (Draft)〉. Sixteen creator and rights organisations representing all fields of cultural content, including literature, music, broadcasting, art, and video, issued a strong criticism statement on December 15, stating that the plan announced by the National AI Strategy Committee “undermines the essence of copyright and threatens the sustainability of the cultural industry.”
These organisations particularly pointed out that Action Plan 32 effectively opens the door for AI companies to use works as training data without the consent of copyright holders, describing it as a de facto ‘exemption clause for unauthorized and free use’, and called for immediate withdrawal and a comprehensive review.
“AI development without fair compensation is merely exploitation”
The creator and rights organisations argue that this plan directly denies the principle of ‘fair compensation’, which is the foundation of copyright law. While copyright law aims to protect the rights of creators and harmonise social use, it is based on the premise of providing fair remuneration for creative labour.
The organisations criticised the government for excessively expanding the scope of fair use under the pretext of fostering the AI industry, allowing profit-driven private companies to freely utilise creators' private property. They argue that this weakens creative motivation and is a choice that ultimately undermines the competitiveness of the cultural industry in the long term.
“Distorted global trend... merely selective citation”
Strong counterarguments have been raised against the ‘global trend’ presented by the government. The international community is, in fact, reforming its systems to clearly require the permission of copyright holders during the AI training process and to transparently disclose the sources and scope of training data.
Nevertheless, pushing for extensive exemptions for profit-driven purposes based solely on exceptional cases from some countries is seen as deceiving creators and distorting the international flow.
Weakening existing guidelines... “Bias towards AI companies”
Criticism has continued that the 〈fair use guidelines〉 already established by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism are insufficient in terms of protecting creators. In this context, the government's direction to establish legal exemption provisions for AI training in just a few months is viewed by the cultural and artistic community as a biased policy that reflects only the interests of AI companies.
The organisations evaluated this as “a hasty push without consistency with existing systems or social consensus.”
Ineffective opt-out, shifting responsibility to individual creators
Particularly problematic is the ‘opt-out’ method. The condition that copyright holders must directly express their refusal in a machine-readable format to receive protection is seen as a structure that effectively forces individual creators, who lack technology and capital, to waive their rights.
The organisations criticised it as “a system that shifts the responsibility to prevent rights infringement onto individual creators,” stating it is merely an ineffective measure.
“We must not sacrifice the creative ecosystem for the goal of becoming a global AI powerhouse”
A representative from the creator and rights organisations stated, “While the government acknowledges the increasing value of training data, ignoring the creators who are the rights holders of that data is a clear policy contradiction,” and emphasised, “We must not commit the error of destroying the cultural and artistic ecosystem for the goal of becoming a global AI powerhouse.”
They further stated, “We will continue to respond strongly until the policy direction is revised to a sustainable AI development strategy based on fair compensation, correcting the widespread copyright infringements that are already occurring in the AI training process.”
The cultural and artistic community views this issue not merely as an industrial policy debate, but as a matter concerning the value of creative labour and cultural sovereignty. It is a critical time for social discussions on how innovation in the AI era and the rights of creators can coexist.