SBS has drawn its sword against Chinese illegal distribution sites that are illegally distributing its dramas, such as ‘Romantic Doctor, Teacher Kim’, ‘Taxi Driver’, and ‘The Devil’.

On the 3rd, SBS announced, “We have succeeded in criminally punishing and shutting down the operator of ‘Laowangkanju’, an illegal video streaming site with servers in Hong Kong.”.

In May of last year, SBS cooperated with the Nantong Municipal Public Security Bureau and the China office of the Korea Copyright Commission to prevent copyright infringement by ‘Laowangkanju’, which was providing unauthorized Korean content, and filed a criminal complaint against the operator. Recently, a Chinese court sentenced the operator to 1 year and 8 months in prison, suspended for 2 years, and a fine, along with the closure of the site.

‘Lao Wang Kan Ju’ is an illegal site that has its servers in Hong Kong and operates a paid membership system to generate illegal profits. The site operator uploaded content currently being aired in Korea, allowed users to view part of the content, and then provided a cloud link containing the entire video only to users who signed up for paid membership, thereby conducting illegal service activities. This site has illegally distributed a number of contents, including the popular SBS dramas ‘Escape of the Seven’, ‘Romantic Doctor, Teacher Kim’, ‘Model Taxi’, and ‘Evil Spirit’, and generated illicit profits.

SBS stated, “We will further accelerate the crackdown on illegal sites in China in preparation for the lifting of the long-standing THAAD ban and the opening of the Chinese market”, and added, “The government‘s continued interest and cooperation is more important than anything else to ensure that this case does not end up being a one-off success story.”

China designated Korea as a visa-free country in November of last year, and Twice and Ive held fan signing events in February and March of this year, raising expectations for the lifting of the ban on Korean Wave.


Reporter Seungmi Lee smlee@donga.com

This article is automatically translated using Google AI. If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know at allkstar@donga.com.