"Organized Crime for Commercial Gain... Particularly Egregious Nature of the Offense"
The operator of Nunutv, the largest copyright infringement website in South Korea that illegally distributed popular K-content such as the drama "The Glory," has been sentenced to prison.
On May 26, Judge Ko Youngsik of the Daejeon District Court Criminal Division 9 sentenced Nunutv operator A to three years in prison and ordered the forfeiture of 700 million won for violating the Copyright Act.
After launching Nunutv in 2021, A was brought to trial on charges of illegally streaming domestic and international paid OTT content. Even after Nunutv was shut down in April 2023, A continued by launching and operating another illegal streaming website, Tvwiki, and further expanded his activities to domestic webtoons by running the illegal webtoon site Okaytoon. It has been determined that the number of illegal videos and webtoons distributed through these sites reached hundreds of thousands each.
A provided free access to various new content in exchange for displaying advertisements for multiple gambling sites on the websites. To evade government crackdowns, he operated servers overseas, including in the Dominican Republic and Paraguay, and maintained the sites by frequently changing domains. He also collected accounts from official webtoon sites from an unspecified number of people during the process of illegally copying and posting works, and used peer-to-peer (P2P) streaming technology to reduce video transmission costs and maximize profits.
To avoid detection by investigative agencies, A meticulously used multiple virtual private networks (VPNs), overseas credit cards, and foreign virtual asset exchanges when accessing servers. He was eventually apprehended last year through a joint investigation by the Copyright Crime Forensic Investigation Unit of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the prosecution, and Interpol. During the arrest, authorities seized criminal proceeds valued at between 2.4 billion and 2.6 billion won, including Bitcoin and luxury foreign vehicles owned by A.
Judge Ko stated, "The defendant systematically infringed property rights over a long period for commercial gain, such as earning advertising revenue, which makes the crime particularly egregious. Copyright crimes not only undermine the income of copyright holders but also diminish creative motivation and ultimately hinder cultural development. Taking into account the defendant's admission of wrongdoing and lack of prior criminal record, the sentence was determined accordingly."
Meanwhile, Nunutv, which gained popularity for allowing users to watch the latest dramas and movies without a subscription fee, reportedly had a peak monthly user base of up to 10 million. The estimated copyright damages caused by these activities are believed to amount to approximately 5 trillion won.
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