TLDR: South Korea’s public broadcaster KBS and tech giant Naver have announced a comprehensive AI partnership, a move that is significantly impacting the ongoing copyright disputes within the broadcasting industry. This collaboration, formalized on July 24, 2025, sees Naver providing AI technology to KBS, while KBS offers content for developing next-generation media workflows. This development comes just months after KBS, along with MBC and SBS, filed a lawsuit against Naver in January 2025, alleging unauthorized use of broadcast news content for AI model training. Industry observers suggest this partnership could fracture the united front of broadcasters against AI firms, while experts highlight that broadcasters’ primary concern is the potential disruption to their business models and news traffic, rather than AI itself.
A significant shift is underway in South Korea’s media landscape as public broadcaster KBS and tech powerhouse Naver have officially entered into a comprehensive partnership in the field of artificial intelligence. This collaboration, formalized through a memorandum of understanding signed on July 24, 2025, is poised to reshape the ongoing debate surrounding broadcasting copyrights and AI training data in the country. Under the agreement, Naver will supply its advanced AI technology solutions to KBS, while the broadcaster will provide valuable content and educational resources. The primary aim of this synergy is to explore and develop next-generation media workflows powered by generative AI, enhancing content planning, production, distribution, and dissemination processes across the board.
This strategic alliance emerges against a backdrop of escalating copyright disputes. Just months prior, in January 2025, KBS, alongside fellow terrestrial broadcasters MBC and SBS, initiated a lawsuit against Naver. The lawsuit accused Naver of infringing on copyrights and violating the Unfair Competition Prevention Act by allegedly scraping and utilizing broadcast news footage without consent to train its AI models, specifically HyperCLOVA and HyperCLOVA X. The broadcasters demanded financial compensation and a ban on further unauthorized use, with the Korea Broadcasters Association framing the suit as a crucial step in establishing legal and ethical boundaries for AI’s application in journalism.
The recent partnership between KBS and Naver has drawn considerable scrutiny, with industry insiders suggesting it could potentially fracture the united front that Korea’s major networks had formed to push back against unlicensed data use by AI firms. An official from a rival broadcaster, who requested anonymity, commented, ‘This could be seen as Naver attempting to peel off individual broadcasters to weaken the broader legal effort.’
Despite the legal battles, experts indicate that broadcasters are not inherently opposed to AI technology itself. Lee Sung-min, an associate professor in the department of media arts and sciences at Korea National Open University, stated, ‘I think the broadcasters’ core concern centers on the potential decline in news traffic, fearing that AI could infringe upon and disrupt their established business model once AI systems are trained on their content.’ This perspective suggests that the dispute is less about blocking AI innovation and more about ensuring fair compensation and protecting existing revenue streams in the face of evolving technological paradigms.
Beyond the immediate implications for copyright, the KBS-Naver partnership aims for broader technological advancements and public service initiatives. The two entities plan to establish an ‘AI win-win cooperation working group’ to discuss specific AI technology integration plans. Collaborative projects include creating disaster maps by combining KBS’s disaster content with Naver’s AI technology, and developing universal public services such as automatically generating subtitles and screen explanations for the hearing and visually impaired.
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Park Jang-beom, President of KBS, emphasized the significance of this agreement, stating, ‘This business agreement is a joint declaration that goes beyond simple technological cooperation, committing both companies to securing leadership in AI technology while preserving publicness.’ He further added, ‘As a public broadcaster that has been producing and accumulating high-quality cultural content for a long time, KBS, along with Naver, a global tech leader that connects the world through technology and platforms, aims to build a Korea-style AI digital ecosystem and usher in a new era of AI services.’ This partnership is expected to leverage KBS’s world-class video content production capabilities and extensive audiovisual material with Naver’s AI technology solutions and cloud infrastructure, fostering the joint development of models applicable across various content areas and enhancing the protection of AI technology leadership within the ecosystem.
