Last Year, 690,000 Cases of Online Illegal Copying... Most Received Warning Measures

Lee Chae-ik Lawmaker "Monitoring System Must Be Improved and Enforcement Personnel Expanded"

Online piracy has surged by more than 25% over the past three years. According to data from the Korea Copyright Protection Agency disclosed by Lee Chae-ik (People Power Party), chairman of the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee, the number of corrective recommendations for online piracy last year was 694,560 cases, a 25.2% increase compared to 2017.

The Copyright Protection Agency detected and issued corrective recommendations for 2,837,634 cases of online piracy from 2017 until August of this year. Videos such as broadcasts and movies accounted for the largest portion with 1,823,224 cases (64.3%). This was followed by comics (28.1%), music (5.0%), publishing (3.0%), games (2.4%), and software (2.2%). Among individual contents, the Japanese series 'One Piece (82,752 cases)' had the most detected broadcast and comic content piracy. In music, BTS (4,195 cases), and in movies, 'Avengers: Infinity War (6,348 cases)' suffered the most damage.

More than half, 1,453,484 cases (51.2%), resulted only in 'warnings.' 'Account suspensions' accounted for just 873 cases (0.03%). Representative Lee stated, "The monitoring system must be improved and enforcement personnel expanded to ensure swift crackdowns and corrective actions."