piracy streaming sites NoonooTV and TVWiki, as well as the webtoon and web novel piracy site OKToon, will receive his verdict for his copyright infringement charges on May 26 at 2 PM local time. He was arrested on November 9, 2024. Newsis adds that multiple webtoon copyright holders are pushing for the maximum sentence of five years to deter future offenders. Mr. A has reportedly asked for leniency. (Correction: The court date in the headings was previously incorrectly stated as May 22, instead of May 26.)
Mr. A will appear at the Daejeon District Court, the same court that Kakao Entertainment’s IP legal team head spoke broadly about the effectiveness of Korea’s laws to deter piracy in a recent interview:
“There are legal mechanisms to punish copyright infringement, but the level of punishment for operators of illegal websites is low, and the site blocking measures are easily nullified, and the problem continues to be raised. It is necessary to introduce a punitive damages system and strengthen the system for recovering criminal proceeds by improving the Copyright Act and the Information and Communications Network Act.“
OKToon, TVWiki, NoonooTV Piracy Site Operator Has First Sentencing Hearing on May 26
Ahead of the sentencing hearing, Kakao Entertainment was among the voices recently calling for Mr. A’s tough sentencing in both t and individual statements. In March, the Webtoon Illegal Distribution Response Group, an organization comprising Kakao Entertainment, WEBTOON, RIDI, Lezhin, Kidari Studio, Toomics, and Toptoon, called for the maximum possible sentence, earnestly urging “severe punishment so that the damages suffered by copyright holders can be somewhat alleviated and, further, so that this can serve as a warning against the illegal distribution of K-content.“
Kakao Entertainment separately added that piracy dampens the creative desire of copyright holders and the enthusiasm of the K-content industry. Many of the above companies were recently part of a mass series of takedown requests linked to hundreds of series being removed from MangaDex across different languages.
Just How Big Were OKToon, TVWiki, NoonooTV?
According to a letter from the Motion Picture Association dated October 7, 2022, NoonooTV was the 4th most visited streaming site in Korea and 24th biggest site overall, racking up 67.44 million monthly visits in August 2022 alone (via Similarweb data). It was voluntarily shut down, with Mr. A citing rising bandwidth costs and legal pressure.
Mr. A continued to operate NoonooTV’s sister sites under the TVWiki umbrella, which avoided site blocking measures by frequently changing domains through number increments (e.g., tv52.wiki, tv58.wiki). The TVWiki sites pulled over 50 million monthly accesses in October 2024. OKToon received 5.6 million visits in the same month, reportedly distributing over 10,000 webtoons, and earning the attention of WEBTOON in the U.S. after it filed a subpoena request against Cloudflare for any identifying information in August that year. Noonoo TV, TVWiki, and OKTOON now redirect to the following statement following their seizures by the authorities.
Source: Newsis
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