[Bills in Focus] Curbing false information online, easing taxation on media production

Proposed bill: Partial Amendment to the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection

Proposed by Rep. Yoon Doo-hyun (People Power Party)

● Disinformation is difficult to recognize but can be rapidly reproduced and distributed across various communication channels. Not only can this lead to defamation and privacy violations, but disinformation can also be especially dangerous during crisis situations. Therefore, this amendment aims to prevent the distribution of disinformation by explicitly obligating information and communication service providers to manage disinformation and designate the persons in charge.

Proposed bill: Partial Amendment to the Act on Restriction on Special Cases Concerning Taxation

Proposed by Rep. Byun Jae-ill (Democratic Party of Korea)

● Rising production costs have caused domestic media production corporations to turn to global over-the-top services for funding. This phenomenon highlights the need to enhance national tax support for media content production to bolster the domestic media content industry. This amendment aims to increase the tax deduction rate for costs incurred in media content production to 20-30 percent from the 3-10 percent range depending on the size of the enterprise and broadens the range of video content eligible for tax credits.

Pending bill: Partial Amendment to the Framework Act on the Construction Industry

Proposed by Rep. Kim Hack-yong (People Power Party)

● As safety accidents continue to occur at construction sites, there has been a growing urgency to reinforce the level of administrative restrictions on unconscientious construction practices. This amendment aims to enhance the effectiveness of existing restrictions to facilitate a safe construction environment by extending the maximum period of business suspension for failure to perform obligations from six months to one year and raising the maximum penalty surcharge from 500 million won to 1 billion won ($373,000-$746,000).

Promulgated bill: Enforcement Rule of the Medical Service Act

Competent Authority: Ministry of Health and Welfare

● The recently amended Medical Service Act requires medical institutions to install closed-circuit televisions in operation rooms and video-record the surgery upon the request of the patient or their next of kin. This enforcement bill stipulates the procedures for requesting, processing and accessing video recordings, specifies the cases where requests can be denied, and prescribes the storage of video recordings for at least 30 days.

Administrative announcement: Partial Amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act

Competent Authority: Ministry of Science and ICT

● To encourage digital platform operators to proactively foster a sound transaction environment, this amendment enables value-added telecommunications business operators, including digital platform service operators or organizations of such business operators, to devise and implement autonomous regulations to promote innovation, protect users, and establish mutual cooperation autonomously or through a private platform self-control organization. It also provides grounds for the government to support the self-control activities of these business operators.

The Korea Herald republishes a weekly legislative report by local law firm DR & AJU LLC to provide the latest information on bills approved, proposed, pending and set to be promulgated. -- Ed.

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For any queries about the bills, contact cr@draju.com.

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