Movie columnist, Lee Kyung-Ki

Lee Kyung-Ki is a movie columnist who began his career as a movie journalist in 1985 and published nearly 70 books about movies. Although Lee made a successful beginning, he is currently earning his living as a day laborer on construction sites.

The trouble began in November 2010, when Lee provided his painstaking "World Film Encyclopedia' to Naver. During his phone interview with AsiaToday on July 16, he said, "Naver is such a super 'gap'."

In Korea, a business partnership is often called “gap-eul” relations. The ‘gap’ refers to those who give orders while the ‘eul’ is a bidder or contractor. In Korea, the relations are lopsided and in extreme cases, the "gap-eul" is also disparagingly called as "master-slave" relationship.

Lee said, "I devoted my private fortune to write 'World Film Encyclopedia' and I was going to provide it to Naver Knowledge Encyclopedia in exchange for 55 million won as a down payment. But I did not receive a penny from NHN after signing a contract. The publishing company CEO, who signed with NHN on behalf of me, took down payment."

Setting aside Lee's contract issue, NHN has been providing Lee's content through its Naver Knowledge Encyclopedia for more than a year even after the expiration date specified in the contract agreement, which was December 31, 2011.

According to the agreement obtained by AsiaToday, the contract renews automatically on a yearly basis as it expires, if there is no objection from both sides. The writer expected an additional fee to be paid even if he didn't receive the contract fee at the beginning.

However, NHN didn't pay any additional fees. NHN claimed that the copyright royalty for using the work has been completed with its first payment. Whether the deposit has been paid to the real owner or not did not matter.

Lee said, "If you sign a contract with NHN and get a down payment of 10 million won, it means that NHN can use the content forever with 10 million won. Where on earth is such copyright law?"

When Lee remonstrated with the unfair contract terms, NHN suggested him an alternative. The company proposed to make a new content contract for writing a few  more books about film music on the existing World Film Encyclopedia. Lee accepted the offer.

However, NHN rejected Lee's proposal. Lee said, "In accordance with NHN's offer, I submitted a proposal on adding two books on the updated version of World Film Encyclopedia. But NHN continued to put off contract for unclear reasons and rejected the proposal in June last year saying that 'There is no difference in content'."

After its rejection, NHN removed the World Film Encyclopedia without any notice. Back then, Lee prepared the lawsuit against NHN to receive royalties.

He said, "When I said I will sue NHN, they said that an individual cannot beat Naver. It means that NHN is a big company with legal team and there's nothing to be afraid of. But I don't have anything to lose, neither. I sued NHN."

Lee's action ended up losing his first trial. The court decided in NHN's favor. The result was expected. He filed an appeal and the result will be made on July 17.

Lee said, "I don't expect to win the second trial. But as a writer, I wanted to fight against "dinosaur" NHN and point out the injustice."