The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) said on the 9th that it held the "MCST–WIPO Trust Fund 20th Anniversary Cooperation Event" on the 8th at the headquarters of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland, with delegations from all 194 member states in attendance, and presented a vision including Korea's leadership in copyright discussions in the artificial intelligence (AI) era. Kim Young-soo, MCST First Vice Minister, attended the opening ceremony as the ministry's representative.
"Korea is a country that possesses a world-class content industry, digital technology, and an advanced copyright system all at once," Vice Minister Kim said that day, according to the ministry. "Using this WIPO visit as an opportunity, we will further expand cooperation with the international community to protect the value of K-content, and do our utmost so that the Republic of Korea can establish itself as a nation leading the formation of the future international copyright order."
According to the MCST, the ministry and WIPO established the trust fund in 2006 to close the gap in copyright protection levels worldwide and strengthen the copyright capabilities of developing countries. Through this, over the past 20 years, the fund has hosted and operated a total of 161 international conferences and training programs (with 4,125 participants from 97 countries), jointly managed more than 2,350 copyright dispute cases, and led digital-era copyright protection agendas such as responses to online copyright infringement.
Over the past 20 years, the MCST's cumulative contributions have reached a total of 14.6 billion won. At this event, the ministry shared major achievements of the past 20 years of cooperation with the international community and presented a vision to strengthen cooperation over the next 20 years.
In his opening address that day, Vice Minister Kim announced before the member-state delegations a plan to expand human and financial contributions to WIPO and to lead international copyright norms. Marking the 20th anniversary of the cooperation, the MCST plans to increase the WIPO trust fund by about 62.6% (approximately 600 million won) from the current level, and to support the dissemination of the "K-Copyright Protection System (I-COP)" to major Hallyu content-exporting countries. It also plans to foster a healthy international copyright ecosystem while further tightening the protection system for Korean content's copyrights overseas.
In addition, Vice Minister Kim met with WIPO Director General Daren Tang to discuss ways to expand cooperation for shaping international copyright norms in response to the AI era. WIPO has continued international discussions on AI and copyright through various channels, including the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) AI information sessions, AI-based initiatives (AIII), and new-technology meetings, and Korea has also actively participated in these.
Vice Minister Kim emphasized the need for AI and copyright to be reborn as partners in mutual growth. To achieve this, he expressed the will for Korea to take the lead in establishing and operating an international discussion body that can debate technology and policy in the AI-copyright field from a comprehensive and integrated perspective — a step beyond the current WIPO-level discussions, in which technical and policy discussions proceed separately.
In other words, he declared a commitment to create a venue for cooperation that can shape international norms in the AI-copyright field by leveraging Korea's strengths in content industry competitiveness and AI technological capabilities.
As a first step toward this, the MCST plans to hold an "AI-Copyright International Roundtable" in 2027, and to use it as an opportunity to establish Korea as a nation leading the formation of international norms in the AI-copyright field.
Meanwhile, Vice Minister Kim also pursued copyright cooperation with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Meeting with UAE Assistant Undersecretary Al Muaini of the Ministry of Economy and Tourism, he agreed to sign a Korea-UAE copyright cooperation memorandum of understanding (MOU) going forward and to expand the scope of copyright cooperation. The UAE is a major overseas market for K-content and is also considered one of the most advanced countries in the Middle East in terms of copyright protection and enforcement systems.
The MCST plans to make the UAE a key hub country for copyright cooperation in the Middle East region, and to lay the groundwork for the overseas spread of the "K-Copyright Protection System" beyond the existing industry- and infrastructure-focused cooperation. Through this, the ministry plans to expand the scope of international copyright cooperation, which had been concentrated in some continents such as Southeast Asia, across the entire "Global South," including the Middle East.
