"Protecting K-Copyright with AI"... MarkVision Detects Counterfeit Products Worth 90 Billion KRW from Lezhin Comics

Logos of AI-based counterfeit monitoring startup MarkVision and webtoon platform Lezhin Comics.
[Photo by MarkVision]

[Asia Economy Reporter Junhyung Lee] MarkVision, an AI-based counterfeit monitoring startup, announced on the 20th that it has detected and removed counterfeit products worth 90 billion KRW related to the webtoon platform Lezhin Comics' content.

Since last month, MarkVision has signed a contract with Lezhin Entertainment and has been monitoring counterfeit products infringing on trademarks and copyrights of about 10 Lezhin Comics works on six e-commerce platforms across three countries. Within one month of starting the monitoring service, MarkVision detected and deleted over 4,000 counterfeit products. Among the thousands of products detected by MarkVision, only two were rejected when reported on e-commerce platforms, indicating a detection accuracy of 99%.

The high accuracy is attributed to MarkVision's proprietary technology. MarkVision's AI can detect products infringing copyrights on global platforms by learning only the faces of famous characters appearing in the works. Some of the counterfeit products detected this time were reportedly difficult to distinguish with the naked eye.

Lezhin Entertainment has been selling webtoon-based products through 'Lezhin Shop' in Korea, the United States, Japan, and other countries. According to MarkVision, as Lezhin Entertainment's content gained great popularity overseas, cases of unauthorized use of copyrights to produce and distribute counterfeit products surged. MarkVision explained that by adopting MarkVision's counterfeit product detection solution, Lezhin Entertainment can accurately grasp the scale of counterfeit products related to its content distributed on global e-commerce platforms and respond swiftly.

Lee Sung-eop, head of Lezhin Entertainment, said, "By signing a contract with MarkVision, we have established a more systematic counterfeit product response strategy," adding, "We will strengthen the intellectual property (IP) protection system for works by our affiliated artists and derivative products and expand our influence in the global market."

Lee In-seop, CEO of MarkVision, stated, "Recently, in addition to e-commerce, cases of counterfeit products infringing copyrights of famous works are continuously increasing on social networking service (SNS) platforms," and added, "Solutions and policy support are needed to efficiently protect K-content."