Webtoons and Web Novels to Be Preserved by the State... Mandatory Deposit Begins in December

Establishing the First Legal Framework for Serial Web Content

From December this year, webtoons and web novels will also be required to be deposited at the National Library of Korea.

On June 23, the National Library of Korea held a meeting of the "Web Content UCI System Operations Council" to discuss the implementation plan for the deposit system and the current status of assigning UCIs to webtoons and web novels. UCI (Universal Content Identifier) is a unique identification code assigned to digital content.

According to the revised Library Act, which comes into effect on December 3, webtoons and web novels assigned a UCI will become subject to mandatory deposit. This revision marks the first legal framework for the national collection and preservation of serial web content. The meeting covered the scope of deposit targets, deposit methods, and compensation standards.

Since September last year, the National Library of Korea has been assigning UCIs to webtoons and web novels. A total of 651 production and publishing companies have registered, and 887,522 UCIs were issued as of last month.

Kim Hyeryeon, Head of the Online Data Division at the National Library of Korea, said, "We will operate a reasonable deposit system to ensure that webtoons and web novels are preserved as part of the nation's intellectual and cultural heritage for future generations."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.