Naver Webtoon Issues 'Summons' to US Court...150 Illegal Sites Shut Down

Naver Webtoon has succeeded in shutting down over 150 illegal overseas websites after three months of effort. This is the result of issuing a 'Subpoena' through a U.S. court, a first in the webtoon industry.

In July, Naver Webtoon issued subpoenas to a major U.S. content delivery network (CDN), demanding the personal information of operators of about 360 illegal websites. Information such as addresses, emails, and payment details of illegal site operators is essential for tracking and apprehension. The subpoenas also have the effect of deterring the activities of illegal site operators.

Based on the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) in the U.S., copyright holders can request online service providers to submit personal information of suspected copyright infringers via subpoenas when copyright infringement occurs on online services. However, the procedure is very complex for individual creators to pursue on their own. Naver Webtoon acted on behalf of creators, bearing all costs to carry out the subpoena process.

According to Naver Webtoon, among the approximately 360 illegal sites listed in the subpoenas, about 150 sites?including major primary illegal sites directly distributing webtoons?have been completely deleted or temporarily suspended.

According to the traffic statistics site 'SimilarWeb,' the annual user visit traffic of the 150 illegal sites affected by Naver Webtoon's action amounts to approximately 2.5 billion visits.

Naver Webtoon plans to share the information obtained about illegal site operators with investigative agencies and respond strictly under a zero-tolerance policy.

In addition, as part of the creative ecosystem support program 'Webtoon With,' Naver Webtoon is taking various measures to protect the creative ecosystem and minimize damage to creators caused by illegal sites.

Notably, Naver Webtoon developed 'ToonRadar,' a technology that inserts invisible user identification information into webtoon images to identify and block the original illegal leakers. Since July 2017, this technology has been used to track illegal webtoon reproductions domestically and internationally. Beyond technical measures, Naver Webtoon continuously strengthens pre- and post-response efforts, including monitoring, reporting, and legal actions.

Since May this year, Naver Webtoon launched the 'Wave' project to respond more aggressively to illegal webtoon sites, especially in North America. Wave is a project aimed at persistently disrupting the operations of large-scale overseas illegal webtoon sites by selecting them and focusing on quarterly reporting.

Naver Webtoon not only sends strong warning notices to selected illegal sites but also reports comprehensively to all related parties involved in illegal site operations, including domain management companies, hosting providers, internet service providers (ISPs), social media, and payment services. Over the past five months, the average monthly traffic of 23 illegal sites under Wave project management decreased by 30% from July to October. Some sites had their domains permanently blocked, and many Naver Webtoon works illegally distributed on these sites were removed.

Kim Gyu-nam, Head of Legal Affairs and Anti-Piracy Task Force at Naver Webtoon, said, “This achievement benefits not only Naver Webtoon but also the entire webtoon industry suffering from illegal webtoon sites. We will continue to actively take all possible measures that the platform can to eradicate illegal webtoons.”