[로펌의기술]①’Intellectual property experts’ lawyers in the plaza led to compensation of 1 billion won for the damage of’illegal copying and distribution of webtoon’ which is difficult to estimate

Input 2021.01.13 06:00

With the advent of the era of 30,000 lawyers,’survival competition’ in the domestic legal system is expected to heat up. In addition, in line with various regulations and market changes, the law firm market’s demand for litigation is expected to increase more than ever. But to the general public, the law firm still feels far away. Companies with legal teams also suffer from lack of information. So I prepared. What law firms, what lawyers, and what strategies they responded to were selected and introduced in major trials.

If you made a free site by copying your personal creation’paid webtoon’ without permission, and used it as a channel to attract adult gambling sites to earn profits, how much and how should the damages for illegal webtoon sites be calculated?

Kakao Page, a platform that provides Daum webtoons, the originator of the webtoon world, recently received a total damage compensation of 1 billion won against illegal webtoon distribution sites. In the webtoon market, which has the steepest growth in the content industry, the atmosphere is welcoming, saying, “The creator’s right has been recognized as a civil affair.” This victory was the result of the outstanding expertise of lawyers specializing in intellectual property rights (IP) at the law firm Kwangjang.

◇Illegal but’free’…will intangible damages be compensated?
Adult i.com operators Jungmo, Aunt, and Shinmo randomly downloaded 260,785 episodes of webtoon 4901 without obtaining permission from webtoon companies from June 10, 2017 to May 3, 2019. After that, it was uploaded to adult-i.com without permission, copied and distributed, and obtained advertising revenue. Accordingly, he was prosecuted for infringement of copyrights for infringing copyright holders’ copyrights for profit. On May 28, 2019, the Busan District Court convicted all of them and sentenced them to probation from imprisonment.

The problem was that there was no way to compensate for the mental pain of individual creators who provided works on Kakao Page. Accordingly, Kakao Page decided to respond firmly to compensate for individual creators and went through a civil lawsuit procedure.

Earlier, the convictions against the defendants were confirmed, but the civil suit process was not easy. The defendants (lawyer attorney Cho Myo-jin and lawsuit attorney Ho-jun Lee) created a base for the operation of an illegal site by a Chinese Korean-Chinese programmer, aka Park Mo, and opened a domain called Adult-i.com, which has servers overseas. In addition, illegal gambling sites were posted on this site as banner ads and the proceeds were obtained. Accordingly, it was judged that Kakao Page was obligated to compensate for all damages suffered, but the issue was how much will be compensated (the scope of liability for damages).

The court judged that it was a time when it was difficult to calculate the amount of damage pursuant to Article 125 (2) of the Copyright Act, although it was recognized that the damage occurred. This is because the cartoon site itself operated by the defendants was free. In other words, although profits from gambling sites exist, the cartoon itself is provided free of charge, but the issue was whether the court would recognize the damages and how to obtain the damages.

Accordingly, Eun-Woo Lee and Su-Jung Kang of the Law Firm, who represented Kakao Page, emphasized that content is an asset with a definite right as a personal creation, and recently, as illegal webtoon distribution sites have become popular, creators and the webtoon market have suffered enormous damage. Emphasized that there is. In particular, since it is difficult to calculate the amount of damage in detail, he argued that the actual damage should be compensated as it is expected to be much larger.

The judiciary first paid attention to the number of web pages the user went through to view the first webtoon. In that it takes the form of browsing the latest episodes of works that most users have subscribed to, it was determined that it goes through an average of 3.54 pages per webtoon.

In addition, the number of page views (2.34995 million) that occurred during the period when the defendants downloaded the webtoon from Kakao Page is divided by the average number of pages that go through the first webtoon (3.54). Divided by the number of webtoons viewed per episode (average 2545), it was recognized that Kakao Page’s webtoons were viewed at least 200 times per episode. In the end, considering that the fee for using webtoons is 200 won per webtoon, the usage fee that Kakao Page was able to benefit from was set at at least 1,064,72 million won.

The judge said, “The defendants must jointly pay 1 billion won in damages to Kakao Page.” “Obligation to pay delayed damages calculated at a rate of 12% per annum from December 10, 2019, the day after delivery of the copy of the possession, to the date of payment. “There is.”

Law Firm Square, Lee Eun-woo (left), Kang Soo-jung, lawyer
◇Intellectual property experts Eun-woo Lee and Su-jeong Kang, attorney at Kwangjang
Attorneys Eunwoo Lee and Sujeong Kang of the Law Firm, who represented this case, have a wealth of experience and expertise in IP lawsuits. Attorney Lee passed the 43rd bar exam in 2001 and completed the law department at Seoul National University Law School and the Graduate School of Law. Since 2004, he has been in charge of all areas of IP, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, domains, unfair competition, intellectual property licensing, and job inventions.

In addition, from 2016 to 2019, he was selected as a recommended lawyer in the field of trademark disputes and litigation by IP star of Managing Intellectual Property (Managing IP) under the UK Euromoney, and World Trademark Review. In particular, it attracted attention by winning the case in the Supreme Court case, which was the first in Korea to question the copyrightability of’functional works’.

Regarding the Kakao Page’s winning case, Lee said, “Even if the defendants were criminally punished, the issue was how to get compensation for damages for the part of webtoon piracy used as a’means’.” It is meaningful in that it has practically recognized the rights of the content provider and the party who has the rights of the content in that it opened the way to receive substantial civil damages for content reproduction and distribution.”

Attorney Kang is also a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property rights who joined the Plaza in 2015, and is carrying out various intellectual property litigation and advice such as trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, patents, licenses, and entertainment. He graduated from the Department of Public Administration at the National Police University in 2009 and passed the 54th Judicial Examination in 2012 after completing the Graduate School of Public Administration at Seoul National University in 2011.