KOMCA Chairman Lee Si-ha (left) and Agency President Baek Jong-hoon (right) pose for a commemorative photo after signing the memorandum of understanding. Courtesy of KOMCA
The Korea Music Copyright Association (Chairman Lee Si-ha; hereinafter, the ‘Association’) announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Korea Manhwa Contents Agency (President Baek Jong-hoon; hereinafter, the ‘Agency’) to promote convergence content linking music with comics and webtoons and to strengthen the competitiveness of the content industry.
On May 7, at the Association headquarters in Gangseo-gu, Seoul, Association Chairman Lee Si-ha, Agency President Baek Jong-hoon, Director of Strategic Management Seo Heon-jong, and other officials from both organizations attended the signing ceremony and pledged to establish a foundation for mutual cooperation.
The Korea Manhwa Contents Agency is the only comics-dedicated promotion institution in Korea and serves as a central base for the comics and visual content industry. It has built and operates clusters for the comics culture content industry, including the Webtoon Convergence Center and Business Center, and, through operation of the Korea Manhwa Museum, which preserves and exhibits the largest collection of comics materials in the country, it spreads the artistic and industrial value of comics. It also organizes the ‘Bucheon International Comics Festival (BICOF)’, a leading domestic comics festival visited by more than 100,000 people each year, and pursues a variety of projects to enhance the value of Korean comics and expand their global reach.
Through the agreement, the two organizations decided to cooperate in a wide range of areas, including: ▲ identifying and promoting convergence content between music and comics/webtoons ▲ identifying and operating cooperation models based on OSMU (One Source Multi Use) that link music with comics/webtoons by utilizing the Bucheon International Comics Festival ▲ facilitating exchanges and collaboration between creators and industry stakeholders in the music and comics/webtoons fields ▲ cooperation on education and publicity to protect copyrights and spread a sound content usage culture.
By combining the strengths of the distinct content domains of music and comics/webtoons, the two organizations plan to discover new growth engines for the K-content industry and, by actively developing and disseminating OSMU cooperation models that leverage platforms such as the Bucheon International Comics Festival, to contribute to creating added value in the content industry and strengthening industry competitiveness.
Association Chairman Lee Si-ha stated, “As many comics and webtoon works are combining with music to move fans around the world, this agreement will be a turning point that elevates the integration of the two arts to the next level,” adding, “The Association will do its utmost in copyright protection and improvement of the creative environment so that creators can continue to take on new challenges with peace of mind.”
Beginning with this agreement, the Association plans to add musical expertise to various projects that the Agency promotes going forward and, in particular, to expand copyright education programs for prospective creators, thereby continuously pursuing practical collaborative tasks.
