Culture ministry to join with Interpol to crack down on copyright infringement

Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Park Yang-woo / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

By Park Ji-won

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is backing a joint project with Interpol to shut down websites infringing the copyright of Korean cultural content, amid rising demand for it during the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

The ministry said Thursday it will spend 700 million won ($643,250) on the project with Interpol so that the two can cooperate on closing overseas websites that violate intellectual property rights through unauthorized copying, distribution and selling. It will also push for the arrest of the people involved.

Interpol has a network of more than 194 member countries.

The ministry will also create a system of cooperation with investigation agencies in China and other Asian countries to deal with the damage caused by the illegal content.

The move comes as the number of views of illegal Korean content and related violations surge amid the rise in indoor activities during the pandemic.

The culture ministry also has been working with the Korea National Police Agency since 2018 to crack down on illegally copied content because of its effects on the culture industry.

Some domestic websites that violated the law were closed and the people who benefited from running them arrested. But it was difficult to track down the rising number of websites and operators overseas.

The consultative committee of the webcomic industry ― six web portals managing online comics ― claimed that illegal websites cost them 1.8 trillion won between January 2017 and August 2018.