저작권의 국제소진에 관한 고찰 - 대법원 2023. 12. 7. 선고 2020도17863 판결을 중심으로 -

The international trade of goods containing copyrighted works, such as commercial music albums, movie DVDs, and character merchandise, has been actively growing, leading to an expansion of the market for parallel imports of authentic goods. However, the copyright holder's distribution rights become problematic in relation to authentic goods parallel imports. A copyright holder has the right to control where and how their work is distributed, and parallel imports of authentic goods involve distributing products purchased abroad in the domestic market, which may infringe upon the copyright holder's distribution rights, regardless of the holder's wishes. While Article 20, proviso of the Copyright Act in our country stipulates the principle of exhaustion of rights, it does not explicitly define the territorial scope of its application, leading to different interpretations. If Article 20, proviso is interpreted to mean only domestic exhaustion, then the copyright holder's distribution rights are not exhausted even if the original or copies of the work are lawfully traded abroad. On the other hand, if international exhaustion is also included in the interpretation of Article 20, Clause 1, then the copyright holder's distribution rights over works lawfully traded abroad are considered exhausted. In this regard, the relevant ruling is significant as it is the first to explicitly recognize the possibility of international exhaustion of copyright and provides a basis for determining the criteria for such recognition. However, the ruling does not specifically mention exceptional reasons for which international exhaustion is not recognized while presupposing that "unless there are special circumstances," so it is necessary to establish clear criteria for exceptional reasons for which international exhaustion is not recognized in the future. For instance, situations where there is a limited permission or where the copyright holder has not received adequate compensation could be considered as exceptions to international exhaustion. Furthermore, it is desirable in terms of legal stability and predictability to clearly recognize the international exhaustion of copyrights through legislation, such as Japan, and to prepare exceptions similar to the anti-return regulations of the Japanese copyright law in case the interests of copyright holders are unfairly infringed, rather than depending on the court's judgment on whether to apply the copyright's international exhaustion.