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| The poster for the hit Kakao webtoon series, "Itaewon Class" / Courtesy of Kakao Entertainment |
By Park Han-sol
Kakao Entertainment, which operates Kakao Webtoon and Kakao Page, announced that it has removed nearly 7 million pirated webtoons and web novel series across global platforms in the last eight months through its specialized anti-piracy task force.
From last April to November, the company monitored major global search engines, including Google, Yandex and Bing, as well as social media channels, and subsequently took down more than 6.87 million episodes that have been illegally distributed in multiple languages, according to a white paper released on Wednesday.
The task force has particularly strengthened measures to stamp out unauthorized content distribution within the Chinese-speaking market.
It added Baidu, China's top internet portal, to its watch list this year and successfully removed 1.04 million episodes of pirated webtoons and web novel series ― a quarter of the total cases ― from the market.
The rampant illegal distribution of Korean media content in China has long remained a headache for entertainment firms here. In addition to webtoons and web novels, a throng of original Korean films and dramas ― such as "Squid Game," "All of Us Are Dead," "Hellbound" and "Space Sweepers" in recent years ― have fallen victim to piracy in the country through bootleg copies and unofficial streaming services.
According to data released by the Korea Copyright Protection Agency, from 2019 to 2021, China accounted for 32.5 percent ― or 85,135 in number ― of the total cases of illegal distribution of Korean content.
Kakao Entertainment established a task force dedicated to anti-piracy measures in November last year, becoming the first player in the industry to do so. Currently, it has specialists monitoring and reporting pirated content in English, Chinese and Indonesian.
The company said it plans to continue releasing white papers detailing the activities of its task force to tackle the chronic issue of unauthorized file sharing in the industry.
It is also working to expand cooperation with Korea's Copyright Overseas Promotion Association (COA), Korea Webtoon Industry Association (KWIA), as well as other administrative bodies and law enforcement agencies both here and abroad.
"To effectively tackle digital piracy that is taking place across illegal websites and social media worldwide, the content industry needs to establish a complex and systemized crackdown model rather than simply resorting to artificial intelligence or other technological responses," Lee Ho-jun, Kakao Entertainment's chief legal officer and head of the anti-piracy task force, said in a statement.
"We hope that the company's white paper and its task force can have a positive impact on the industry and contribute to protecting the rights of our creators."
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