Korea’s piracy websites Noonoo TV, TVWiki, and OKToon has been sentenced to three years in prison and was ordered to return 700 million won (~$510k) in criminal gains. The Daejeon District Court handed down his sentence on May 26.
Pseudoanonymously referred to as Mr. A in the trial, Noonoo TV’s operator is considered one of the biggest pirates in Korean history. The Motion Picture Association (MPA), currently comprising the major American entertainment companies Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery, described Noonoo TV in 2022 (PDF, Page 8):
“This piracy link site had 67.44 million monthly piracy visits in August 2022, 99% of which are from Korea, leading to a local rank of 24 in Korea, according to SimilarWeb. NooNoo.tv is growing quickly, with daily visits doubling in just the past four months. NooNoo.tv is the 4th most visited streaming site in Korea, compared to both legitimate and illicit sites, and is by far the most visited piracy site.“
Mr. A also operated the TVWiki streaming website, which the MPA flagged as particularly effective in circumventing site-blocking orders in Korea (MPA is currently working with Congress to implement site-blocking laws in the U.S., targeting foreign piracy sites.
Noonoo TV and TVWiki amassed billions of visits during their time. The former was voluntarily shut down, with Mr. A citing mounting bandwidth costs and legal pressure. TVWiki was shut down following Mr. A’s arrest by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Copyright Crime Scientific Investigation Unit on November 9, 2024.
The webtoon piracy site OKToon was shut down on the same day, and had long been the target of notable webtoon companies, such as those making up the Webtoon Illegal Distribution Response Group: Kakao Entertainment, WEBTOON, RIDI, Lezhin, Kidari Studio, Toomics, and Toptoon. In March 2025, they called for the maximum sentence of five years to serve “as a warning against the illegal distribution of K-content.“ OKToon infringed on an estimated 10,000 volumes (per the Webtoon Illegal Distribution Response Group). It racked up 5.6 million visits in September 2024.
Further comments from Kakao Entertainment in March added that piracy dampens the creative desire of copyright holders and the enthusiasm of the K-content industry. A number of the above companies recently made headlines for inserting exploitative clauses into their contracts with authors and fellow companies in the webtoon and web novel industry. The Korea Fair Trade Commission flagged RIDI, Kidari Studio, and Kidari Studio’s subsidiary Lezhin among the 23 companies inserting over 1,100 unfair clauses into 141 of their .
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Yonhap News also reports how Mr. A evaded detection for so long. He constantly changed domains to avoid site-blocking orders, such as with TVWiki (e.g., domains like tv52.wiki, tv53.wiki, …, tv58.wiki). He also stored content on overseas servers in countries such as the Dominican Republic and Paraguay, and maintained his operations by using VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), paying with overseas credit cards, and through virtual asset exchanges. He also used peer-to-peer streaming technology, where video files are split into small pieces and stored on multiple servers to reduce the load on any particular server.
The Daejeon District Court said on Mr. A’s sentencing:
“It is a serious crime to systematically infringe on property rights over a long period of time for profit-making purposes, such as obtaining advertising revenue. Copyright crimes not only infringe on the copyright holder’s ability to generate revenue but also discourage creative desire, ultimately hindering cultural development. We decided the sentence after considering the defendant’s ission of wrongdoing and criminal record.“
Mr. A may still appeal his sentencing, as Agitoon’s operator unsuccessfully attempted to do in April 2025. Agitoon was one of the most notorious webtoon and web novel piracy sites. Its operator’s 2-year prison sentence and order to return 71.49 million won (~$50k) were upheld.
Source: Yonhap News
Featured image © DUBU(REDICE STUDIO), Chugong, h-goon 2018 / D&C MEDIA
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