'K-웹툰'의 영토를 훔치는 해적들, 국제 공조라는 칼날로 베어내다 > K-wave Trends

The three illegal sites known as ‘Hari’, ‘Cartoon’, and ‘Koon’ that were shut down this time were not simple individual aberrations, but took the form of a highly organized criminal enterprise. Since early 2023, the operators, a Vietnamese couple, have disrupted the global market by stealing over 14,000 domestic webtoons without permission, translating and distributing them into English. They made enormous profits through banner advertisements and user donations, and even had the audacity to imitate legitimate platforms by introducing paid membership services. The fact that the number of annual visitors exceeds 1.1 billion suggests that they have already grown into a huge evil that threatens an axis of the global webtoon ecosystem, and the damage estimated by the webtoon industry of 207.2 billion won is a serious figure that shakes the foundation of the creative ecosystem.

The key driving force behind the success of this investigation lies in the organic ‘public-private joint response’ system between the government and private companies. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Copyright Protection Agency joined forces with 'Anti-Piracy', a dedicated organization for Naver Webtoon, and persistently tracked evidence of crimes using their own Open Source Information (OSINT) analysis and technical blocking tools such as 'Toon Radar'. The specific infringement circumstances and damage data obtained by private companies served as a decisive clue for investigative agencies to identify suspects and prove criminal charges. This is a successful model that shows that content companies go beyond simply operating a platform and establish an equal cooperative relationship with the government as an active investigator for copyright protection.

The process of international cooperation was also very elaborate and step-by-step. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism started with a working meeting with Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security and Interpol in June last year, and began narrowing down the siege in earnest by activating Interpol's international cooperation investigation channel in September. In particular, the 'Copyright Protection Cooperation Agreement (MOU)' signed in November became the legal and institutional foundation for this investigation, and subsequently led to cooperation from Vietnamese investigative authorities through close information exchange and working-level visits. In particular, in conjunction with the 'special intellectual property crackdown period' that the Vietnamese government implemented from early May, local public security moved quickly, and in the end, Ho Chi Minh public security summoned two suspects for questioning and completely confiscated the server.

This incident presents important guidelines for future response to overseas copyright infringement. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism goes beyond this arrest and is actively considering the possibility of repatriating the suspects to the country and recovering the proceeds of crime, and will support strict prosecution procedures in accordance with local law. In addition, as there was a case last February where another illegal site operator was caught and a promise was made to stop the infringement and prevent recurrence, cooperation with Vietnam is now evolving into a continuous surveillance system rather than a one-time event. This is an example that proves that establishing practical partnerships with overseas investigative agencies is the only solution to copyright protection in an era where digital borders have become meaningless.