Anchor: Developments in the publishing industry are expected to make the author-publisher relationship less unfair. The Fair Trade Commission has ordered a change in the practice of publishers signing authors to small contracts, and retaining all benefits including secondary rights.
Our Kim Soyon explains. 

Report: The imaginative idea of baking bread out of clouds gave birth to the now famous "Cloud Bread" series, around which a popular franchise has been launched.

Some 400-thousand copies of the books have been sold. The stories were also made into an animated film and a musical production, generating 400 billion won in added value.

However, the author of the original book received a mere 18-point-five million won, because when the publishing house first signed with the author, the deal specified that she sign over all future profits resulting from writing the stories.

The Fair Trade Commission has put a halt to such unfair practices. The watchdog has ordered that the top 20 publishing firms in terms of sales revise the provisions in the contracts they use.

Authors will now be able to choose which rights they will hand over to the publisher, and for the company to obtain copyrights of secondary content, it must sign a separate agreement with authors.

Also authors can freely decide whether to transfer copyrights to a third party without the publisher's consent. Any right excluding those related to publication can be freely handed over to a third party at the discretion of the authors.

The commission expects the measures to help better compensate the creators of copyrighted content so they would be more motivated to produce creative works and help advance the cultural industry. 
Kim Soyon, KBS World Radio News.