Korea Copyright Protection Agency Illegal Distribution Content Deletion Rate 47%

Comparison with the Private-Led Copyright Overseas Promotion Association with 99.3% Deletion

The Korea Copyright Protection Agency is struggling to remove illegally distributed content overseas. According to data disclosed on the 13th by Yujeongju, a member of the Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee from the Democratic Party, four overseas offices have received requests to delete approximately 550,000 pieces of illegal content since 2019, but have only processed about 260,000 cases, or 47%. These offices are located in China, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. They are responsible for infringement response and establishing cooperation systems, but their execution has been minimal.

The country with the highest number of illegal content deletion requests is China (148,510 cases). However, the deletion rate was only 48.5% (85,135 cases). Thailand, with 109,066 requests, had an even lower deletion rate of 41.4% (45,100 cases). Most difficulties were encountered in deleting video content such as broadcasts and movies. Representative Yu explained, "The number of video content deletion requests from the four countries is 357,980," adding, "Only 42.5%, or 152,251 cases, were deleted."

The inadequate response sharply contrasts with the private-led Copyright Overseas Promotion Association. During the same period, it detected 55 million cases of illegal content distribution and deleted 99.3%, or 55.09 million cases. Representative Yu pointed out, "It is difficult to make a simple comparison as the Copyright Overseas Promotion Association monitors and deletes content from global sites," but added, "The Korea Copyright Protection Agency’s deletion rate, which does not even reach half, clearly has issues." He emphasized, "It would be better to transfer monitoring and deletion tasks to the Copyright Overseas Promotion Association and focus on what the government can do."