Seoul charges late artist's foundation over W12.1m in copyright fees for catalog

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has sparked controversy by billing the foundation representing the estate of the late painter Chun Kyung-ja (1924–2015) more than 10 million won in copyright fees for an art catalog the foundation produced to promote her work at home and abroad.

The foundation plans to retain a lawyer and pursue dispute resolution through the Korea Copyright Commission, arguing the fees should be waived because the publication is intended to introduce a leading Korean artist to the world.

Seoul city hall, however, maintains that the charges are unavoidable under applicable regulations because the publisher is also selling the catalog to the general public.

According to the Chun Kyung-ja Foundation — whose chairwoman is Kim Jeong-hee (Sumita Kim), the painter's second daughter — the foundation produced a bilingual Korean-English catalog last year featuring more than 160 of Chun's works and has been distributing it.

The foundation said it commissioned Italian art publisher Skira to produce the catalog because no English-language catalog of Chun's work existed, and that the foundation covered all production costs.

The project was selected for an overseas publishing support program run by the Arts Management Support Center under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, receiving 50 million won in funding.

Seoul city hall subsequently sent the foundation an official notice demanding payment of 12.1 million won ($8,700) in copyright fees for the works reproduced in the catalog.

Chun transferred the copyright to all of her works to the Seoul Metropolitan Government in November 1998, while she was still alive.

At the time, she said she hoped "my paintings will not be scattered but remain with ordinary citizens forever," and donated 57 color paintings, 39 drawings, and painting supplies to the Seoul Museum of Art, transferring all copyrights to the city along with the donation.

Seoul city hall says anyone wishing to use Chun's works in publications or exhibitions must obtain the city's permission.

The foundation, however, argues that collecting copyright fees for this particular publishing project is inappropriate.

Moon Bum-gang, a professor at Georgetown University who is Chun's second son-in-law and the foundation's general director, said: "This is a publishing project carried out by a nonprofit foundation, and the government itself encourages and supports overseas publishing. It is hard to comply when Seoul — which holds the copyright — cannot offer support but instead demands more than 10 million won in fees."

The foundation said it donated a significant portion of the catalogs to art museums and libraries at home and abroad and distributed them free of charge to relevant parties, adding that the foundation itself does not earn sales revenue.

Skira, however, is selling the catalog to the public — through Coupang Inc. and similar platforms in South Korea and through Amazon and similar platforms overseas. Sales revenue is understood to go to the publisher.

Seoul city hall said it calculated the copyright fees by applying the Korea Culture Information Service's public works copyright fee collection regulations.

Under those regulations, the city billed 75,000 won per work for the 160 interior images and 100,000 won for the cover image, arriving at a total of 12.1 million won.

The regulations do, however, include an exemption clause allowing fees to be reduced for uses serving a public-interest purpose.

The foundation argues the catalog qualifies for that exemption.

The foundation also raised a fairness concern, noting that no copyright fee was charged for a special exhibition held in 2024 in Goheung-gun, South Jeolla Province, to mark the centenary of Chun's birth.

Seoul city hall said the fees were levied in accordance with the relevant regulations and that there is no problem with how they were applied.

The city explained that the foundation applied for copyright permission last September, declaring the catalog a "non-commercial, not-for-sale item" with a print run of 2,000 copies, and was granted free use on that basis — but the city later confirmed Skira was selling 1,000 of those copies commercially, prompting the copyright fee assessment.

The city added that the remaining 1,000 copies used by the foundation for nonprofit purposes continue to be covered under the free-use arrangement.

The city said the Goheung exhibition was organized by a local government as a nonprofit event and therefore qualified for a fee waiver, whereas the catalog is a publication sold commercially to the general public, making it difficult to apply the same standard.

Seoul city hall also noted that it granted copyright permission last year on the condition that the catalog display the author's name and copyright holder — the Seoul Metropolitan Government — but the foundation instead printed language to the effect that all rights to the content and images in the publication belong to the foundation, raising the possibility that the foundation could generate revenue from related activities.

The city ordered the foundation in March to correct the copyright attribution, but the foundation has not complied.

The foundation maintains that the commercial sales are also aimed at distributing the English-language catalog worldwide to promote Chun's work, and are fundamentally different in nature from an active commercial enterprise.

Moon said: "I hope the mediation process with Seoul city hall will lead to the establishment of a reasonable standard that broadly recognizes the public-interest nature of cases where a nonprofit foundation's public-benefit project is combined with commercial distribution by a private publisher."