By Park Si-soo
Websites containing pornography have multiplied thanks to the openness of the Internet and their money-making business model, experts said Monday. Therefore, they say the way to fight it is to tackle the issue from the standpoint of both demand and supply.
The experts say unauthorized file sharing sites will continue to pop up like mushrooms, as will distributors of child pornography and other illegal films as long as the business is lucrative.
“No matter how tough it (a police crackdown) may be and how long it lasts, where there is demand, there is supply,” said Kim Ho-bum, a spokesman for the Digital Content Network Association that represents authorized file-sharing service providers, citing the basic rule in business.”
Kim said the crackdown might halt some unauthorized distributors but the entire porn business will remain intact.
“The key nature of the Internet is openness, which means no matter how tough the crackdown may be, there will be loopholes,” he said.
No statistics or information exists about how many pornographic films are in circulation in cyberspace and how profitable their trade is. But a report from state Internet regulator Korea Communications Commission (KCC) sheds light on the hidden part of the business.
The KCC said in a report that a total of 42 file-sharing websites are under investigation by the prosecution for running without state approval. Operators of the websites will face a fine of up to 150 million won ($133,000) or three years in jail if they are convicted of offering the service without software filtering out obscene and violent material.
“The unauthorized websites under investigation are the tip of the iceberg and this suggests that there are people making money by distributing illegal pornographic films through them,” said Shin Seung-ryul, a KCC official familiar with the matter.
He said pornography is rarely produced on Korean soil. Almost all films of this kind in circulation here were filmed in Japan or the United States and then “imported” through file-sharing websites whose severs are located overseas.
“Websites running on overseas severs are uncontrollable,” Shin said, “What we can do is tighten monitoring of domestic portals and other major websites through which imported pornographic firms are redistributed secretly. But the complete elimination of these from the Internet is virtually impossible.”
His last comment speaks volume about how tough it is to uproot this business: “Simply put, pornography works upon the proven theory: where there is demand there is supply. Considering that sexual desire is a basic instinct, the porn-related business will be hard to kill.”
Following a series of child rape cases that have shocked society, police have launched a nationwide crackdown on distributors and possessors of pornographic films featuring minors.
This move has immediately triggered a controversy over whether the government should control such activities.
Opponents claim that such moves are not fundamental solutions, while advocates say that strict measures are needed to avoid a recurrence of similar incidents.
Prime suspects in the cases admitted to being addicted to such obscene films, saying their abnormal sexual desire was linked to such material.
Their desktop computers at home had hundreds of child pornography files ㅡ the possession of which is illegal here ㅡ that are believed to have been downloaded through unauthorized, paid file-sharing websites, according to police.
Five people were prosecuted last week for possession of child pornography, the first case of this kind since anti-child pornography laws were adopted in 2008. A man was arrested Monday for selling child pornography at night on the street.
In a broader crackdown, the government is considering banning the circulation of pornographic films through Internet messenger services.