Warcraft and Copyright Reforms

The best thing about flying on a national carrier was that Korean newspapers were available on board. Unfolding one, Yoo Jae-won found the political and social pages dominated by a recently passed law and a Fair Trade Commission announcement.

“I had no idea Congresswoman Lee Seong-hee was this effective.”

Compared to the labor-law revision that had been stalled for ages, the Copyright Advanced Management Act and the standard entertainment contract had sailed through the legislature in the blink of an eye. The name “Copyright Advanced Management Act” sounded odd, but its substance was straightforward: it mandated ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠computerized tracking of offline sales and established clear guidelines for the online use of musical works.

The law placed heavy emphasis on point-of-sale systems in physical stores, making electronic record-keeping compulsory. That was understandable; Korea’s music industry had long operated on a haphazard, almost arbitrary basis. Sales figures were routinely inflated for the press, only to shrink dramatically when settlement time arrived. Now everything would change. Any outlet selling records would have to install POS terminals and feed the data into the Korean Music Copyright Association, which would then distribute accurate sales information to rights holders and generate official charts.

Later, when he met Congresswoman Lee Seong-hee at a restaurant, she confessed that the bill had moved so quickly largely because of his name. She had asked permission to use it, and Yoo Jae-won had agreed without hesitation. At the time he had doubted whether dropping his name would make much difference, especially while the labor-law revision languished, but the National Assembly had seen things differently. Implementing the new system required computerization and POS equipment, and the company best positioned to supply both was ID Technology. Lawmakers therefore assumed Yoo Jae-won would be the biggest beneficiary.

The ruling-party members, already burdened by the stalled labor-law revision, the Personal Information Protection Act, and various OECD-related bills Yoo Jae-won had requested, had seized the chance to pass a relatively uncontroversial measure and ease their sense of debt. That same calculation had even led them to codify government subsidies for the computer systems needed to manage copyright data.

In a way, it looked as though Yoo Jae-won had strong-armed the Assembly into earmarking funds for his own business. He found the legislators’ peculiar logic astonishing, yet the outcome aligned with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his own vision, so he let it pass.

What mattered more was the standard entertainment contract. From October 1994 onward, exclusive singer contracts could not exceed seven years, and revenue splits with agencies had to follow reasonable guidelines. The recommended ratio was 7:3; anything as extreme as 0:100 was declared illegal. A 0:100 split had meant an agency could withhold every won until its “investment” in a debut was recouped. To Yoo Jae-won the arrangement had always been absurd. Agencies supplied money, but singers contributed talent, labor, and irreplaceable time—resources arguably more valuable than cash. Yet agencies had exploited their superior bargaining position to impose lopsided terms.

Under the new standard contract, even a hundred won in revenue had to be divided according to the agreed ratio, and the figures would be drawn from the computerized system created by the Copyright Advanced Management Act. No longer would singers pour their youth into the industry only to disappear without a single settlement.

“It’s a pity the standard contract applies only to singers,” he murmured.

Other entertainment fields had been left out because singers worked with clearly documented copyrighted songs that were easy to digitize, while other disciplines were harder to track. Still, he told himself, it was a start. Once the music industry changed, the effects would gradually spread. Culture always flowed from the top down.

At the same time, Yoo Jae-won felt a surge of urgency. Limiting the Copyright Advanced Management Act to offline sales alone would be a waste. He wanted to build an entire ecosystem—MP3 players, online music platforms—that would benefit users, artists, and rights holders alike. Larger returns for creators would ease his conscience and lay the foundation for what promised to be a highly lucrative online music business under the ID Group. At the same time, removing a long-standing abuse in the entertainment world would contribute to cultural progress. All in all, it was welcome news.

“Glad it worked out,” he said, setting the paper aside. Content, he drifted into a sweet sleep.

“Could you slow down a moment?”

Yoo Jae-won, en route from Gimpo International Airport into Seoul, had been gazing idly out the window when something caught his eye. Greg, the bodyguard driving, flicked on the hazard lights and eased the car to a crawl. The early-morning flight meant the roads were still quiet.

“What’s wrong?” Kim Dae-seok asked, startled.

Yoo Jae-won pointed at a shabby commercial building. It was an ordinary, aging concrete structure from the eighties, but what had seized his attention was the sign on the third floor: Magpie PC Bang.

“Magpie PC Bang?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

The sight of a proper PC bang—beyond the earlier PC cafés—was already significant, yet something else made the moment even more striking. A brand-new banner hung beneath the sign:

A PC bang was hosting its own game tournament, and the featured title was Warcraft.

“Look into that tournament for me.”

“The Magpie PC Bang Warcraft event?”

“Exactly.”

“Understood.”

Kim Dae-seok immediately reached for the phone and called the secretariat. Yoo Jae-won signaled Greg that it was safe to resume ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠speed, and the car accelerated toward the Rodeo Street office.

Yoo Jae-won felt lighthearted. The newspaper he had read on the plane and the PC bang he had just spotted were small pleasures, but they were pleasures nonetheless. No single earth-shaking event had occurred, yet the trip already felt worthwhile. Summer had passed, the sky was clear, and everything about this visit to Korea promised to be pleasant.

Once in Seoul he wasted no time. In the morning he stopped by the Rodeo Street office to encourage Lee Chan-soo and the rest of the ID Technology staff, praising the innovations in ID Office 95. Five-year veterans had already received luxury watches, and some had been given golden keys; the additional compliments lifted morale even higher. He capped the visit by promising a substantial bonus if ID Office 95 outsold its predecessor—an outcome everyone regarded as certain given rising PC penetration and the growing number of students and office workers learning the software.

Next he visited the construction site of the ID Group headquarters in Dogok-dong. The H-beam skeleton already towered above the surrounding apartments and the hill behind Dogok Park. Although the 101-story building still had a long way to go, it was already visible from every direction. Escorted by officials from Mirae Construction, Yoo Jae-won rode to the top floor. The panoramic view of Seoul, unobstructed from that height, was exhilarating. When the structure was finally complete, the vista would be even more magnificent. On a clear day like today, one could already see the 63 Building in Yeouido with perfect clarity.

October skies over Korea were famously high and cobalt blue, and today’s was especially deep. Having grown accustomed to skies veiled by fine dust, Yoo Jae-won found the sight especially moving. He captured it with the digital camera he now carried everywhere.

Later, reviewing the images on a monitor at home, he felt a twinge of disappointment. The camera had failed to reproduce the vivid autumn blue; insufficient resolution and limited color fidelity had robbed the scene of its true brilliance. The problem was not the camera alone. PC graphics cards and CRT monitors could not yet match real-world brightness or color accuracy, so even the finest film cameras could not faithfully record or display what the eye had seen.

Yoo Jae-won would have liked to develop digital cameras himself, but the field required sensors, lens technology, and massive factories—resources beyond his immediate reach. The best he could do was continue investing in the small Silicon Valley ventures already working on CCD and CMOS sensors.

“Perhaps it would be simpler to establish a separate color standard for PCs,” he mused.

At present, no industry-wide color standard existed. Each graphics-card maker rendered colors differently. Newcomers 3DFX and NVIDIA produced especially poor results—greens that looked like lime, overall dullness—while ATI maintained consistent gamma and brighter tones. Professionals seeking accurate color still relied on Matrox cards, though those offered no 3D acceleration. Even the NVIDIA 3D accelerator slated for the upcoming iWorks workstation had been color-tuned through Japan’s Canopus, an arrangement ID Group had commissioned directly.

Yoo Jae-won respected NVIDIA’s 3D performance but found its color reproduction unacceptable, so he had ordered the tuning himself. The result was a card that delivered both top-tier 3D speed and Matrox-level color fidelity—at the cost of roughly 180,000 won per unit. He considered the expense irrelevant. Premium PCs might currently belong to the NewEgg series, but he was determined that future professional workstations would belong exclusively to ID Group. Cutting corners on invisible details would only damage the brand, a mistake he had seen destroy countless companies in his previous life.

“I suppose I’ll have to convene the graphics-card makers as soon as I return,” he decided. A conference was necessary not only for the color-standard issue but also for the next version of Glide X. With Quake released, John Carmack was ready to devote himself to the successor, which Yoo Jae-won intended to revolutionize by introducing programmable unified shaders that would let developers extract 100 percent of a card’s performance. Solving the color-standard problem at the same time would finally end the endless debates over hue and saturation.

“Still, it’s a shame about the photographs,” he sighed, closing the files. No amount of curve adjustment in Photoshop could restore the brilliant blue sky he remembered.

“Now, how many days until that incident?”

Abandoning the photos, he opened the calendar on his desktop. “The twenty-first—fourteen days left.”

He launched the browser, connected to Korea Nextcom, logged in, and navigated to the National Petition Board—the online complaint portal he had once suggested to former Prime Minister Jeon Myeong-heon. Jeon had championed the idea in cabinet, arguing it would showcase a government responsive to the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠internet age, and President Kim and the other ministers had approved the project.

The mechanism was simple: citizens posted complaints, monitoring staff in the Prime Minister’s Office routed them to the appropriate agencies, and a dedicated safety-inspection team handled reports involving buildings or bridges. Despite a flashy launch that had made headlines, the board now sat virtually unused. Without visible, swift resolutions, citizens had dismissed it as another political vanity project—loud at the start, empty thereafter.

“If I can demonstrate that it actually works,” Yoo Jae-won thought, “that will be enough.”

After all, he had proposed the online petition system to Jeon Myeong-heon in the first place to ensure that a certain upcoming incident could be resolved as smoothly as possible.