[New Wave] Who Is Bullying Pengsoo?

Although it has been less than a year since its debut, the trending character from Antarctica, 'Pengsoo,' has recently become the top choice for bookings with 1.85 million YouTube subscribers and approximately 533,000 Instagram followers (as of January 2020). Recently, Pengsoo has been appearing across various media platforms, including TV variety shows featuring fathers and children, showcasing its popularity.

The distinctive feature is its ability to captivate diverse social groups simultaneously, enjoying popularity across generations. Unlike traditional characters, Pengsoo did not originate from animation or other primary content but started as a small segment on a broadcast. It has experienced explosive growth influenced by the platform economy, leading to a significant ripple effect, including the rapid expansion of related merchandise. Foreign media such as Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP) have also taken note of this phenomenon, describing it as a fresh shock to conservative Korean society, stating that Pengsoo is even more popular than BTS (Bangtan Sonyeondan).

Alongside this, intellectual property issues have grown. Unauthorized goods and YouTube content using Pengsoo have increased, causing headaches for EBS. On online shopping mall sites and social media, it is not uncommon to see posts selling various goods featuring Pengsoo, such as badges and hoodies. On YouTube, channels other than the official 'Giant Peng TV' account have uploaded countless Pengsoo videos. Recently, it was confirmed that someone unrelated to the character had filed a trademark application for 'Pengsoo' first, which caused controversy.

Meanwhile, public institutions and local governments have also faced issues for borrowing Pengsoo's image under the guise of parody. Goyang City Hall in Gyeonggi Province introduced 'Gwaengsoo,' which combined the official mascot 'Goyang Goyang' with Pengsoo's eyes and mouth. The Ministry of Personnel Management was embroiled in a counterfeit controversy after unveiling 'Peongsu,' a character very similar to the famous Pengsoo.

What is more concerning is the anxiety over how this popular character might be exploited in relation to the upcoming general elections. Recently, candidate A, who completed preliminary registration for the general election, created promotional materials using Pengsoo and used Pengsoo's greeting "Peng-ha" without permission. Such actions, lacking proper awareness, have a high potential for misuse under the pretext of parody ahead of the elections. This contradicts Pengsoo's values, which aim for free activities regardless of social prejudice or political colors.

According to the 2020 'Top 10 Copyright Protection Issues Outlook' announced last year by the Korea Copyright Protection Agency, copyright infringement in one-person media based on platforms like YouTube and AfreecaTV accounted for 14.9%, ranking first. Also, the related '2019 Copyright Protection Annual Report' indicated that the potential legal market infringement rate due to illegal copying in 2018 was 10.7%. The legal content market size in 2018 was 20.8057 trillion KRW, with the infringement scale reaching 2.4916 trillion KRW. As platform economies develop in areas such as games, movies, and webtoons, these problems are becoming increasingly serious and represent a significant downside to the Korean Wave (Hallyu), which has a major global influence led by BTS.

Research shows that the more advanced the country and the higher the education level, the greater the love for characters and the higher the rate of intellectual property protection. To cherish and love good characters and to have long-lasting characters like Mickey Mouse, we must first cherish them ourselves. At the end of last year, the Character Society proposed as a mid- to long-term development agenda for the character industry how to protect, activate, and enhance the capabilities of character IP as a link between genres and industries in the era of convergence and digital fusion. The times demand the emergence of new characters and new IPs, which is also the future of our content industry.

If we want to continue seeing Pengsoo, who appears in traditional costumes at the New Year's Eve bell-ringing ceremony and loves our culture, it requires the efforts of all of us. Relevant authorities should strengthen crackdowns and preventive activities against copyright infringement. At the same time, awareness of intellectual property-related laws and systems must be raised, and continuous efforts through protection education and counseling should be pursued.

Byungmin Lee, Professor, Department of Cultural Contents, Konkuk University

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.