Convergence of broadcasting and telecommunication law is currently under discussion in the Republic of Korea. The background of the discussion lies in the technological advancement and newly integrated service of broadcasting and telecommunication. However, the converging may necessitate numerous legal regulations, since they are two entirely distinct systems. Currently, broadcasting and telecommunication is regulated according to the conventional regulating ideologies. There are some limitations pertaining to traditional regulation system, because these regulations do not fully reflect the wide variety of convergence cases of the broadcasting and telecommunication. Moreover, the phenomena of the converging processes shift very rapidly and therefore additional effort needs to be devoted for reforming the present legal system. Especially, the paradigm of the broadcasting and telecommunication regulation is being rearranged from a vertical regulating system to a horizontal regulating system. Therefore, an legislational reform from traditional legal system to a newly system to a newly modeled legal system is crucial at this point. Such context was presented as the reformation of traditional legislation system or reformation a new act, which legally entitled as the “Act for Broadcasting and Telecommunication Business.” A significant amendment was applied to the new legal system, however, there was not a visible amount of progress in terms of legislation for the convergence regulating system. Furthermore, rather a critical problem was apparent within the present broadcasting and telecommunication punishment regulation. Hence, I have conducted a study on the “Plans to Arrange the Statutory Penalty of Punishment Provisions in Broadcasting-Telecommunications Convergence.”
In order to conduct this study, I have divided the group of related provisions
into three different sections; the “Broadcasting Act,” “Acts for Telecommunication,” and “Acts for Broadcasting-telecommunication Convergence.” Then, I researched on the major Acts like “Broadcasting Act” “Telecommunication Act,” the “Wireless Telegraphy Act,” and others. After this analysis, I performed a collective study for legal comparison between the United States of America, Germany and Japan. The reason that I selected these nations is because each of their legal systems display unique legislature in response to the convergence. The U.S. has revised only the existing regulation in the current legal system and Germany has legislated a subsequent law for convergence in addition to the broadcasting and telecommunication act. On the other side, Japanese government is currently attempting to legislate the act of broadcatingtelecommunications convergence after a complete repeal of the existing broadcating act and telecommunication Act.
In conclusion, I have reached the following results in order to rearrange the statutory penalty of punishment provisions in Broadcasting-Telecommunications
Convergence :
- 1. Rearrangement the legal terms
- 2. Rearrangement the general clause
- 3. Rearrangement the regulations that a person in charge regards as a public official
- 4. Rearrangement the monetary penalty and imprisonment
- 5. Rearrangement the regulation of punishment: the criminal punishment to the administrative punishment
- 6. Moving the general criminal punishment regulation to the criminal penalty code
- 7. Rearrangement the penalty against employer and employee
The research is currently a first study conducted on the broadcastingtelecommunications convergence in criminal law. Therefore, I am still liable for fully acknowledging future problems that might be visible during the process.
Consequently, a follow-up study will be necessary in the near future. It is my wish that the study on the broadcating-telecommunications convergence in criminal law serve as a stepping-stone for more variety of relative research in the future.