방송작가 드라마 집필계약에서 방송 편성이 되지 않은 경우의 분쟁과 그 해결방법

For making a series TV drama, a contract is signed between a drama writer and a production company for the manuscript. The production company pays a significant portion of the writing fee in advance. The writer provides several scripts and the production company tries to make it programed and broadcasted by broadcasting companies. However, dispute occurs when the script cannot be programed by the broadcasting company. There arises a question of how to terminate the contract and whether to reimburse the already payed writing fees. In the event that one party defaults, the contract may be terminated by legal cancellation. The court may appropriately reduce the compensation for damages when penalty is assumed to be the compensation for damages. Difficult problem occurs when neither party beached the contract. Writing contracts do not correspond to typical contracts in the Civil Code. In addition, writers also have a considerable interest in the implementation of the contract. Therefore, Article 673 of the Civil Code should not be easily applied to the contract. Even if Article 673 is applied, unique characteristics of writing contract must be taken into account when calculating the amount of damages. The termination of writing contract should not be treated the same as the case of a construction contract termination. In order to prevent problems and to solve them reasonably, it is advisable to specify the issues in detail which might arise when the script cannot be programmed. The current ‘standard contract’ is stipulating the cause of terminating the contract in several related issues. However, the ‘standard contract’ is incomplete in that it does not stipulate regarding the reimbursement of the already given writing fee.