National Human Rights Body Recommends Abolishing Three-Strike-Out Rule

Today the National Human Rights Commissionof S. Korea published a special report on information human rights. It is the first report comprehensively discussing the progress of information and communication technologies in terms of human rights and providing recommendations for the protection, promotion, and enjoyment of information human rights. In this report, the information human rights covers four different categories: rights to information privacy; freedom of expression online; rights to access to information; and rights to culture and information.

Among other things, the report recommends the followings for the promotion of the right to culture and information:

• Introduction of comprehensive and open-ended fair use provisions in the Copyright Act;
• Legislation of users’ right capable of offsetting abusive enforcement of copyright;
• Guaranteeing the reuse and access of the general public to publicly-funded information and culture;
• Balanced harmony of intellectual property and the right to culture and information;

• With the progress of ICTs, the right to culture and information gains the growing importance for the users to access to information and create and distribute new culture;
• As recommended by each Member States in the 12^th ASEM Human Rights Seminar, IPRs and excessively stringent protection of copyright may jeopardize the enjoyment of human rights and impede the creativity in online environment and thus the public interests should be taken into accounts when the IPRs are to be revised or new provisions are to be introduced.
• The right of author is subject to the human rights aspects, IPRs should be protected in a balanced way that users can claim their rights.

• Regulations such as copyright three-strike-out rules, technological protection measures, and game shut-down, the regulatory effectiveness of which is doubtable and may restrict the right to culture and information, need to be examined in depth to see if they infringe other constitutional rights and, if necessary, such regulations are to be revoked.

The 212-pages report is downloadable here and press release of the NHRC is here (both are in Korean and official English translation will be available in May)