By Kim Sung-jin
Staff Reporter
The South Korean government on Friday expressed regret over the U.S. lack of appreciation over Seoul’s progress in protecting intellectual property rights (IPRs), especially against music, recording and film piracy.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) issued the statement after the USTR placed Korea under the priority watch list for what it calls lukewarm action by the Korean government to protect American IPR rights, one notch higher than the previous watch list and one notch below the worst level.

At the request of the U.S., officials of the two countries will meet early this year in Seoul to seek ways of easing American concerns over the alleged IPR violations.

MOFAT said in the statement that the US decision does not accurately reflect Seoul’s persistent efforts to root out IPR piracy.

Analysts here speculated that the U.S. took the action out of anger over Seoul’s decision to temporarily ban American beef imports in the wake of the mad cow scare.

``There will be no immediate negative influence on Korea as the U.S. will strengthen its monitoring of Korea’s enforcement of IPR protection measures,’’ said Jeong In-sik, an official of the Korea Intellectual Property Office.

MOFAT said Korea has made consistent efforts to strengthen IPR protection, including a revision of laws to conform with global standards. It also noted Seoul’s intensive crackdown on software piracy.

The USTR announced Thursday that the growth of online music piracy in South Korea has caused serious economic damage to both domestic and foreign recording companies, and the continued piracy of U.S. motion pictures in Korea has resulted in millions of dollars in lost revenues for U.S. and Korean copyright holders.

It said that the positive steps taken by Korea in its war against software piracy encourage the U.S.

But Washington said it found that the Korean government has not yet taken necessary action on two of the highest priority issues--- failure to provide full right of transmission for sound recordings and to resolve the film piracy issue.

An official of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MCT) said the latest U.S. action is unconvincing. He said that IPR protections on music records and movies in Korea have improved over the past few years.

MOFAT official Yang Dong-hwan said the government would continue to beef up IPR protection, regardless of the U.S. decision.

Seoul officials here believe that U.S. concerns would be accommodated through a series of meetings. But if Korea’s efforts fail to meet U.S. expectations, the USTR might place Korea on the priority foreign country list, leaving it subject to trade retaliation. Recently, Ukraine was slapped with $75 million in retaliatory sanctions by the U.S.

In May, 2002, the USTR downgraded Korea’s IPR protection status to the watch list from the priority watch list, saying Korea’s IPR protection levels have improved.

Korea has worked on improving IPR protection since being placed on the watch list in 1990 and 1991, but was graded back to the priority watch list between 1992 and 1996 as well as in the years 2000 and 2001. Between 1997 and 1999, it was on the watch list.

sjkim@koreatimes.co.kr