Language, copyright, culture data to be made public

The Korean government has released an additional one million public data records on November 25. With this new release, people will now have access to over 240,000 new data points related to the use of the Korean language, as well as to information about copyright and culture.

Useful language information, such as dictionaries of both the North Korean and South Korean versions of the Korean language, regional dialects and literary dialects, all of which are not currently easily accessible by the public, will now be accessible online.

In addition to the language–related data, there will be unveiled some 800,000 records concerning copyright and patents, particularly covering industry and industrial copyrights. These data include information about copyrights on open source software (OSS), public copyrighted works whose protection period has expired and general copyright registration.

Users will also be able to obtain information about a broad range of Korean culture and art from plays, music and dance all the way through to paintings, architecture and literary and cultural heritage.

This is a joint project between the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Ministry of Security and Public Administration. Their goal is to democratize the use of and access to information, both for daily use and for specific business purposes.

For this project, the National Institute of the Korean Language (NIKL), the Korea Copyright Commission (KCC) and the Korea Culture Information Service Agency (KCISA) have each provided their own sets of data.

The data will be accessible through an Open Application Programming Interface (Open API) starting on November 25. The Open API service allows users to download information so that they can apply it directly to their own business, for instance, developing an app or other service.

The release of data to the public is expected to help achieve “Government 3.0,” the Korean government’s vision to give the creative industries some of the tools it needs to succeed. It will help users enjoy unlimited access to data and give them the capability to develop more diverse, creative services, such as mobile apps or other software programs, using the data at hand.

This project will make it possible for the public to get their hands more easily on public data, the culture ministry said. “We will make public much more needed data and spare no effort to help the project lead to our ultimate goal: creating new businesses and, as a result, jobs. We release the data, and it will spawn creative and excellent ideas from our future entrepreneurs.”