2023-10-07 16:07:04
Until about 10 years ago, Korea was only on the periphery of the global gaming industry. Naturally, it was often difficult to expect Korean subtitles. Only first-party or popular series supported Korean, and there were many cases where third-party or indie games, as well as blockbuster games, did not support Korean.
However, this does not mean that Korean gamers enjoy all games in foreign languages. Isn’t it said that a thirsty person digs a well? People who wanted to enjoy the game in Korean gathered together, and through their efforts, the ‘User Korean Patch’ was released to alleviate their disappointment. But if there is light, there is also darkness. There was not only positive reaction. It was a user Korean patch created with the hope of enjoying the masterpiece in Korean, but it was a topic of debate among gamers for a long time because it amounted to data forgery and falsification.
Such age-old debates have become almost unheard of these days. No conclusion has been reached. Rather, as localization cases gradually increased, user Korean patches naturally decreased. Meanwhile, gamers’ attention is once again focused on user Korean patches. As major games such as ‘Starfield’ and ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ ceased to support Korean, interest in user Korean patches grew.
If the game company does not support the Korean language, users have no choice but to rely on the user’s Korean patch as a last resort. So, is the user Hangul patch really an illegal means? I took the time to hear about the legal basis for this age-old controversy from lawyer Lee Cheol-woo.
▲ Lee Cheol-woo, lawyer specializing in games and entertainment
User Hangul Patch, the core of the issue is ‘copyright law’
Q. In the case of user Hangul patches, since they benefit game companies (and others) rather than harm them, some say that they are closer to escaping the law rather than being illegal. What is the reality?
= If I were to categorize it, it seems that there are more cases where it benefits game companies. However, we cannot say for certain that this is the case. If the target game is preparing for official Korean translation and is about to be officially distributed, it not only poses a potential loss to the importer and distribution company, but also causes a loss to the game company itself if it is to be officially released at a slightly higher price considering localization costs, etc. There is a possibility that this may occur.
However, even if it does not cause any loss to the game company or even makes a profit, it is still a matter of consequence. In any case, it does not change the fact that a game (or in-game script) that is someone else’s creation has been altered without the creator’s permission, so there may still be an issue of whether it is a violation of the law.
However, the Act is a pro-accusation crime, so criminal proceedings do not proceed unless the author files a complaint, and the Game Industry Act also excludes cases where ‘approval from the game company’ is prohibited, so in reality, if the game company tolerates it without taking action, There is no legal punishment.
▲ A Steam official said in the past that when Korean was supported, sales increased by about 140% compared to before.
Q. Are you saying this is clearly an area of illegality?
= That’s right. Whether an act is illegal is not always judged solely from the perspective of property rights, such as whether financial damage will occur. Therefore, if the purpose of the law is to protect other aspects such as creative freedom or personal honor, it may be beneficial to the game company. Even if this happens, there is a good chance that it will be illegal.
Right now, there are many examples of games such as WoW’s glider, game ‘add-ons’, money changers, and fan fiction about celebrities, which are helpful in promoting and selling games, but can be viewed as illegal.
I used the expression ‘evasion of the law’, but unfortunately, from a legal perspective, it seems that cases that are illegal and cases that are not illegal can be clearly distinguished. In particular, for-profit Hangul patches undoubtedly fall into the realm of illegality.
Q. People often say that user Hangul patches are data forgery and ultimately illegal. I think it’s related to copyright law, but what exactly is the legal problem?
= First of all, among the contents of the Act, copyright infringement (mainly the right to maintain identity and the right to create secondary works) may be a problem.
‘Derivative works’ are creative works created by translating, arranging, transforming, adapting, video production, or other methods of existing original works. Although they are protected as independent works, the right to create them is exclusively reserved to the copyright holder of the original work. It is attributed. It is clear that Korean subtitles become a secondary work as a translation of a script such as a game scenario, and if the game program itself is modified, there is a possibility that the patched game may become a secondary work of the game itself, depending on the mode.
Meanwhile, if technical protection measures for controlling unauthorized access, such as the game’s security program, are damaged during the Korean patch process, even if it is not a copyright infringement, you may be subject to punishment according to the prohibition on neutralizing technical protection measures under the Act. For example, in the United States, a program called ‘Glider’, which automatically conducts hunting in World of Warcraft, was judged not to be a copyright infringement, but to neutralize technical protection measures.
In addition, if the Hangul patch operates in the form of a concurrent program, etc., it may be judged that a program not approved by the game operator has been used for the purpose of interfering with game operation under the Game Industry Promotion Act.
▲ Nevertheless, although it is rare, there are cases where the game company is contacted and the user’s Korean patch becomes official.
User Hangul patches may be viewed as ‘fair use of copyright’
Q. That may not be the case, but does it mean that if the game company decides to sue the Korean patch team, they could be punished?
= It is possible. However, there is a limit to the possibility of punishment. Even without the permission of the game company, there is a good possibility that punishment will not be imposed as it is considered ‘fair use of copyright’ and ‘action that does not interfere with the normal operation of the game’, which is not considered copyright infringement, and there is a slim probability. Even if they are booked, I think most of them will end up with non-indictment, suspended indictment, or very minor punishment.
However, this is only the case when Korean patches are produced and distributed for free, and if Korean patches are sold for monetary compensation, the problem is likely to increase.
Meanwhile, even if it is an illegal act, in reality, most game companies tolerate Korean patches without holding them legally responsible, and I, the reporter, and all gamers reading this article will know.
Q. You said that most people tolerate it, but from a legal perspective, are there any areas that the Korean patch team should pay special attention to?
= It was released on PC and console, but you need to be careful if only the console version supports Korean. In fact, there are cases where a user Korean patch team is recruited or produced because the PC version is missing, and in this case, the possibility of it being an illegal act seems higher than in the general case. First of all, from the perspective of the publisher of the console version, the fact that it is ‘the only platform that has been translated into Korean’ may be a factor in purchasing future titles, and since there are parts that require separate localization costs, this may be a loss.
▲ In the case of Nier: Automata, even though it was exclusively translated into Korean for consoles,
There has been controversy over the appearance of a Korean patch for PC version users.
Q. I wonder if translation can also be protected under copyright law. For example, when World of Warcraft was released in Korea, didn’t it become a hot topic because what everyone called fireball in other games was translated as fireball? Can unique translations and nouns like this be protected?
= As soon as I read the question, the sharp translations in GTA5 or Cyberpunk came to mind. Under the Act, derivative works can also be protected as independent works, and it has been mentioned previously that translations fall under such secondary works. For example, I remember seeing a method of uploading Korean patches created by others to web hard disks for a fee, and this act is also subject to punishment under copyright law.
However, this only refers to the translation of the entire game script or a significant portion of it, and if each unique translation expression is considered separately, it seems difficult to recognize it as an independent work with creative potential.
Q. From what I heard, since the mod (including the Korean patch) is a derivative of the original game, I think I read that legally the copyright belongs to the game company. It may not be possible, but is there any problem if the game company steals the Korean patch from the user and updates it without permission, saying it is official Korean language support, without contacting you or anything else?
= It’s not like that. Even if a user’s unauthorized Korean patch infringes on the original author’s secondary work, the meaningful translation result is an independent creative work and an object of copyright different from the original work.
Therefore, if a game company steals a user’s translation without permission and reflects it in the game, there is a possibility that it may be a copyright infringement on the translation result, and even if this is not the case, it may be a violation of the Dispute Competition Prevention Act, which was the issue in the recent Lineage M case. It is highly likely to fall into the realm of illegality as it is an ‘unfair competitive act that involves unauthorized appropriation of results.’
Q. There is a program called MORT that captures text on a PC screen as an image and then extracts and translates it using OCR (text image recognition). In some cases, translation at the level of a Korean patch is actually supported by simple machine translation, reading a specific text image and loading the corresponding translated text. Does using an external program in this way without forgery or alteration of data also constitute copyright infringement?
= If it is a program that runs separately without interfering with the game program and outputs Korean on the screen viewed by the user, it is unlikely to be a ‘program that neutralizes technical protection measures’ or ‘interfere with the normal operation of the game.’ There is still a need to be careful that there is a possibility that it may be judged as an infringement of the right to create secondary works or the right to reproduce for individual works in the game, such as scripts such as game scenarios or in-game components.
▲ Translation methods without data forgery or alteration, such as MORT, may also constitute copyright infringement.
Q. I know that there have been cases overseas in the past where games released only in Japanese were patched into the native language. Are there any cases, including domestically, that have resulted in legal battles due to such native language patches? I’m also curious what the result was.
= As far as I know, there are no cases in Korea or abroad that have reached a court decision. However, there have been a few cases where the production company requested the user patch team to stop working on English patches, such as Final Fantasy English, and I understand that the translation project was halted at this stage and ended.
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