Exam Report: Passing the 'Business Copyright Certification Advanced Level' to Understand Creator Rights

I recently took and passed the advanced level of the Business Copyright Certification exam. I am leaving this record here for my own reference.

What is the Business Copyright Certification?

I'll paste the text from the official website here. Roughly speaking, it's an exam designed to help you acquire a comprehensive level of copyright knowledge necessary for practical business applications.

I learned this after passing, but it seems that those who pass the advanced level of the Business Copyright Certification are eligible to take the Intellectual Property Management Skills Test (a national qualification). I don't have any plans to take it for now, though.

To be more specific, studying for this exam helps you understand things like 'who holds the copyright for an anthology of novels,' 'who is the copyright holder for dialogue or interview articles,' and 'whether copyright arises for ghostwriters.'

Why I took it

My company recommended obtaining it, and since I create content (mainly books) both for work and in my private life, I thought it wouldn't hurt to study it properly once.

How much did I study?

I didn't measure it precisely, but I think the total study time was around 40 hours. I set aside about an hour a day for about a month and a half. It had been about three years since I last studied for a qualification properly, so I felt that my brain was quite rusty...

How I studied

I studied almost exactly by referring to the article below.

Also, the official site provides past exam questions and explanations, which I gratefully utilized.
※There is an application form for past exam questions if you scroll to the bottom.

I felt it was important to reach a level where I could 'eliminate options with a solid basis' for the past exam questions. Most of this exam asks, 'Do you properly understand the content of rights, specific subjects, and exception clauses?' Trick questions appear frequently to measure that level of understanding.

By solving past questions, you get a general idea of the tricks used in these questions. Once you understand the patterns—like whether it's the author or the copyright holder, the original work of art or a reproduction, or screening versus public transmission—you'll be close to passing.

Additionally, I fed copyright-related PDFs published by the Agency for Cultural Affairs into NotebookLM and had it answer questions based on the materials. It's truly an era where you can borrow the power of AI for qualification exam study.

I couldn't do it this time, but I think my learning would have gone more smoothly if I could have purchased reference books as PDFs and fed them into NotebookLM. However, I feel this might fall under 'public transmission' as defined by copyright law, so I am currently investigating whether it is okay to do so.

Also, for a change of pace, I read a book related to copyright called 'Fake Copyright Case Files'. It's quite casual reading, so it didn't directly help with exam preparation, though.

Impressions of the actual exam

I will quickly write down what I felt on the day.

I had prepared by completing four years of past exam papers to the point where I could confidently answer almost every question correctly, so I felt quite confident. However, due to nervousness during the actual exam and the appearance of questions I had never seen before, I felt it was more difficult than I had imagined. After taking the exam, I thought I was right on the borderline of passing or failing.

The exam time was 90 minutes, but I finished in about 50 minutes, including review. It is almost entirely about whether you have the knowledge or not; there are no questions that you can solve just by spending more time on them.

There were a few questions that were reused exactly from past exams, so I think it is definitely worth doing the past papers.

Even without specific knowledge, there were a few questions where I could look at the problem statement and judge, 'Thinking about it with common sense, isn't that prohibited?' and choose the correct answer. However, relying on that alone is nowhere near enough to pass.

There was a right I had never seen before called 'right of adaptation' that appeared in a question, and it turned out to be the correct answer (there are 1 or 2 poorly constructed questions).

If you take the exam online at home, if audio that sounds like you are talking to someone enters the microphone, it will be suspected as cheating, so you need to prepare a quiet environment or explain it in advance if you live with others.

Summary

I was able to acquire a wide range of knowledge that is both interesting to know and useful when creating content, such as 'Who holds the copyright to a short story collection containing multiple novels?', 'Who is the copyright holder of dialogue articles and interview articles?', and 'Does copyright arise for ghostwriters?', so in that sense, it was good.

The legal organization of game streaming and the act of downloading illegally uploaded copyrighted works, as well as areas with fast updates like 'Generative AI and Copyright,' were not included in the scope of this exam. These are topics I am personally interested in, so I would like to keep watching them in the future.