The DPRK joined on April 28 the Berne Convention, a multinational treaty to protect copyright.
Pyongyang’s joining in the treaty enables the DPRK to prepare a legal foundation to internationally guarantee the publication and art and literary works of the DPRK.
Jang Chol Sun, director of the Publication Bureau of the DPRK, said that the treaty would help the DPRK protect its copyright and the DPRK would promote exchange with publishing circles in foreign countries.
The Berne Convention was concluded in 1886. The convention was the first multinational treaty in the world to protect literary property. WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization), a Geneva-based UN organization, is in charge of practical work concerning the convention including revision of the convention.
Summed up below the director’s remarks in an interview by The People’s Korea.
It was at the end of November 2002 that the DPRK applied to the Berne Convention. The DPRK had already joined the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a consultative body of the Berne Convention, in 1974. The WIPO has 23 treaties, and the DPRK had so far joined six of them such as the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Trademark Law Treaty (TLT). The DPRK joined the Berne Convention in consideration of the importance of copyright.
It had protected copyright by concluding bilateral treaties of science and cultural exchange with socialist countries until the Socialist bloc collapsed. Since the collapse of socialist countries in East Europe, the DPRK had worked hard to join the Berne Convention to protect literary property.
In the 4th session of the 10th Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK held in April 2001, the SPA approved the Copyright Law of the DPRK. A new regulation of the Copyright Law, adopted in March 2002, became a legal basis for domestic copyright protection.
It doesn’t mean that the DPRK has had no law to protect literary property. The Socialist Constitution of the DPRK stipulates that a copyright, right of invention and patent rights should be protected. The DPRK legislated for copyright protection of publication in its law of publication. It had developed these laws to a comprehensive copyright act and prepared a legal foundation for the protection of copyright.
It can be said that the DPRK’s participation in the Berne Convention will help protect the literary property of our country and create a favorable condition for protecting literary property of foreign countries.
