“It considers as plagiarism if composition and motion look similar” Kakao tightens up copyright criterion in emojis

‘Ddingdong’s happy day’ emojis that discontinued sales on Kakao Talk due to the plagiarism debate (Right) and ‘Super high spirits cat’ emojis by Japanese illustrator Yuki Kanai (Left) [Photo provided = Kakao Talk Emojis]

Kakao Talk’s criterion of plagiarism in emojis is going to be reinforced. Besides simple expropriate of the emojis similar characters compositions and motions will be considered as a copyright violation and its sales can be discontinued.

According to the business industries Kakao has revised ‘Guidelines of copyright and essential ethics instruction’ with this information. They subdivided the plagiarism related clauses that previously only explained ‘Contents that have a possibility of infringement of copyrights of others’ products or plagiarism debates.’ This follow-up action was for a popular ‘Ddingdong’s happy day’ emojis series on Kakao Talk that doubts about plagiarism from ‘Super high spirits cat’ emojis by Japanese illustrator Yuki Kanai was raised. An official from Kakao explained that “Japanese illustrator Yuki Kanai raised doubts about plagiarism debate and complained.”

The happy day emojis has caught popularity since one of the BTS members has enjoyed it. However due to this incident its sales have been discontinued.

Due to the revision of the guidelines the criterion for the contents invading copyright has been tightened up. Besides in case of an expropriate of works such as characters pictures images fonts and sound sources when characters motions compositions sequences and expression method are substantially similar it will be considered as infringement of copyright.

They also prepared separate clauses and set criterion for ‘Parody’. Quoting the existing contents such as cartoons movies and drama or reminiscence of similar concepts will be taken as infringement of copyright. It is also same to the uses of the original contents with ‘Rotoscoping’ technique. Rotoscoping is a technique that after filming a person’s movements with camera and transcribes each frame. It is literally targeting the works criticized for ‘Drawing over another’ tracing.

Prior to this in 2017 ‘Mushman’ emoji is one of the representative cases that has been embroiled in plagiarism that it copied ‘Death note’ which is well known intellectual property in Japan. He had been criticized for retracing the character and its look from the original work. As the dispute grew the illustrator admitted his plagiarism and the emojis was taken off the market in two months.

Other than this the clause for the contents that invade trademark rights were prescribed. Not only the trademarks registered in IPO but also in case of using well known others’ names trademarks for the name of emojis or illustrators they decided to consider it as an act of unfair competition.

Kakao is planning not to allow to sell the contents that do not meet these criterions on Kakao Talk. In addition they will discontinue sales of contents that are already selling after a fine review if they cause any similar problems. The industrial official said “Before this they repeatedly just hung on to their position saying that it is hard to judge the contents that have not done with legal judgement yet as an infringement of copyright but I am glad that Kakao revised their specific criterions” and added “Since the atmosphere of the importance of copyright for contents and creations and its value have been prevalent it is necessary to manage them strictly.”

Website: : http://www.wip-news.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=5093