'Aladin, involved in "e-book leak," reaches compensation agreement with publishers... Resumes e-book supply from the 11th'

The conflict between Aladin and the publishing industry, which escalated to the suspension of e-book supply, has been resolved for the time being. The Korea Publishers Association announced on the 7th that it has reached a compensation agreement with Aladin Communications Co., Ltd. and will resume e-book supply. The e-book supply is scheduled to resume from the 11th.

According to the Publishers Association, the 'E-book Illegal Leakage Damage Publishers Countermeasure Committee,' chaired by Kim Seonsik, CEO of Dasan Books, negotiated compensation with Aladin on behalf of about 140 publishing companies affected by the hacking incident and reached a final agreement. The compensation will be paid in the first quarter of next year. The amount of compensation was not disclosed.

Lee Gwangho, chairman of the Korea Publishers Association, stated, "Since an agreement has been reached on follow-up measures for the affected publishers, we will work together with the publishing and bookstore sectors to create a way to respond so that such incidents do not recur."

The Korea Publishers Association and Aladin agreed to promote the establishment of a 'Digital Publishing Content Illegal Distribution Eradication Council' (tentative name), involving the entire publishing industry and the government, to prevent recurrence. They also agreed to collaborate on policy development and research related to digital publishing content in the future.

In May, about 720,000 e-books were leaked due to the Aladin hacking, of which about 5,000 were leaked on Telegram and other platforms. The arrested perpetrator was confirmed to be a high school student.