트위터(Twitter)상의 저작물 이용에 대한 법적쟁점 고찰

This paper analyzes potential copyright conflicts on Twitter service and seeks various possible ways to protect its users’ freedom of using copyrighted works on Twitter. Twitter is one of the most fast-growing social networking services which enables its users to send and read messages of up to 140 characters, called ‘Tweets,’ via twitter website as well as Smartphones. Twitter, as a new digital technology that is differentiated itself from other services, suggests a new way of communicating and sharing contents, yet it raises copyright infringement problems at the same time. However, if the authors’ right were overly protected it may hinder users’ freedom in interactive communication through Tweets, which is undoubtedly the core mechanism of the service. Considering that Twitter users exercise their constitutional right to free speech as posting and retweeting Tweets, the free use of copyrighted works on Twitter should be broadly allowed unless the author’s right is unjustly infringed. From this standpoint of view, the paper discusses whether the free use of copyrighted works on Twitter can be allowed as one of the limitations to authors’ property rights under the Copyright Act of Korea. The paper then discusses in depth whether it falls under ‘Fair Use.’ Given that Fair Use doctrine will certainly be adopted in Korea as announced by the legislature, the study is quite meaningful.