South Korea as the World’s Most Wired Nation: Its Digital Democracy as a Real-Life Case Study?”
Many countries, no matter developed or developing, have attempted to harness internet technologies to generate economic growth and development while facing their enormous impact on politics at the same time. Being one of the most wired countries in the world, the influence of internet technologies on the political and economic and development of Korea has been particularly profound. As is often the case in many countries, the Government and large companies in Korea have often tried to limit any political or reputational harm that might accompany the growth of the Internet economy. There have been many analyses and comments on the causal links between new media and democracy. A real-life case study on Korea, especially its digital democracy, demonstrates that democracy does not develop in a digital vacuum but only with well balanced rules, regulations, market forces, citizens’ awareness, and so on. Korean experiments with a real name verification system, three strike rule, internet curfew, and the exiling of internet users to foreign portals are just some real-life cases that need further scrutiny. The speaker hopes that such a case study on Korea will provide a basis for a much richer discussion of the relationship between new media and democracy.
Biography
Professor and former Dean, Law School at Seoul National University, graduated from Seoul National University and received his PhD at the London School of Economics. Doctoral degree was awarded in 1991 for his thesis titled “The Legal Protection of Computer Programs with particular reference to U.K., U.S., Japan & Korea.” His researches and teachings mostly center around copyright, trademark, patent, and unfair competition laws. He also taught comparative intellectual property law at Georgetown University Law Center in 2007 and at Duke Law School in 2003. As professional activities currently, he has served as a civilian member of the Presidential Council of Intellectual Property, the Director of the Center for Law & Technology, Seoul National University and a Panel Member of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. His publication includes various topics ranging from “The Legal Protection of Computer Programs with particular reference to U.K., U.S., Japan & Korea (Ph.D. Thesis)” to “Contributory Infringement of Patents in Korea, 2 Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 287 (2000),” “Property versus Misappropriation: Legal Protection for Databases in Korea, 8 Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 75 (2002),” “Criminalization of Netizens for the Access to On-line Music, Journal of Korean Law, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2004),” and “Fair Use: A Tale of Two Cities, Intellectual Property in Common Law and Civil Law (Edward Elgar, Northampton, 2013).”
