"Damage Estimated at 49.4 Billion KRW"
Webtoon Companies Submit Petition to Daejeon District Court
Following "NunuTV," Illegal Distribution Site Damages Snowball
"Illegal OTT Sites Undermine Creative Motivation for K-Content"
Kakao Entertainment, Naver Webtoon, Ridi, and four other major webtoon companies have submitted a petition urging severe punishment for the operator of the illegal webtoon site 'OKToon.' They estimated the damage caused by OKToon to be as high as 49.4 billion KRW.
On the 12th, seven webtoon companies belonging to the Webtoon Illegal Response Council (hereinafter WebDaehyup)?Kakao Entertainment, Naver Webtoon, Lezhin Entertainment, Ridi, TopToon, Toomics, and Kidari Studio?submitted a petition to the Daejeon District Court requesting strict punishment for the operator A of 'OKToon.' The Daejeon District Court will hold the third trial of the first instance on the 20th regarding copyright infringement and related charges against the OKToon operator.
OKToon is one of the domestic copyright-infringing websites, ranking among the top in terms of posts, traffic, and visitor numbers. It infringed copyrights on 10,000 webtoons, totaling 800,000 episodes. Currently, comics by well-known webtoon artists, including Kian84, as well as Park Tae-jun and Rak-hyun, former and current Naver Webtoon-affiliated artists, are openly exposed on illegal webtoon sharing sites.
Moreover, the OKToon operator is also the operator of 'NunuTV,' a site illegally streaming various video contents. According to materials from a policy forum on enhancing transparency and accountability of overseas sites, the estimated copyright damage caused by NunuTV is about 4.9 trillion KRW, with domestic online video service (OTT) companies suffering approximately 400 billion KRW in losses, and illegal advertising revenue from NunuTV exceeding at least 33.3 billion KRW.
According to WebDaehyup’s own calculation of the damage scale, the financial damage caused by this site to the webtoon content industry is estimated to be up to about 49.4 billion KRW. Nevertheless, WebDaehyup claims that the punishment for illegal site operators remains minimal. Recently, the operator of 'Ajitoon,' a webtoon and web novel illegal site that distributed over 3 million illegal contents, received a first-instance sentence of two years imprisonment and approximately 70 million KRW in fines.
WebDaehyup stated, “The defendant previously operated 'NunuTV,' an illegal video streaming site, before OKToon. The scale and duration of copyright infringement are significant, and the operator actively engaged in profit-driven operations by hosting servers overseas to make identification difficult and promoting the copyright-infringing website through Telegram channels.” They also pointed out, “The defendant has submitted several insincere letters of apology to reduce the severity of the crime,” and emphasized, “We earnestly urge severe punishment so that the copyright holders’ damages can be somewhat healed and to sound an alarm against illegal distribution of K-content.”
Kakao Entertainment said, “Since illegal content widely distributed to individuals will continue to circulate, copyright holders and the domestic content industry will suffer permanent damage that is difficult to quantify. This is a serious issue that dampens the creative motivation of countless domestic copyright holders and the enthusiasm of the K-content industry.” They added, “Many film and broadcasting companies are also voicing a unified opinion through petitions. We urge that the operator of 'OKToon' receive the maximum legal sentence commensurate with the damage to eradicate illegal distribution and protect copyright holders.” Naver Webtoon also stated that it will actively protect the creative ecosystem by mobilizing all measures, including technology, based on a strict zero-tolerance policy toward copyright infringement.
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