Jungmoon Lee of Democratic Party: "480,000 Cases of Illegal Overseas K-Content Distribution... 280,000 Still Undeleted"

As of August this year, the number of takedown requests for illegally distributed K-content overseas exceeded 480,000 cases, but only 40% of the content was actually removed. In other words, 6 out of 10 takedown requests remain unresolved.

Jung Moon Lee, Member of the Democratic Party of Korea. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

According to data submitted by Jung Moon Lee, Member of the Democratic Party of Korea and secretary of the National Assembly's Culture, Sports, and Tourism Committee, from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Copyright Protection Agency, there were 480,205 cases of monitoring and takedown requests for K-content illegally distributed in local languages abroad from January to August this year. Of these, only 194,565 cases were actually deleted, resulting in a deletion rate of just 40.5%. The number of cases not removed stood at 285,640.

The number of takedown requests for illegal overseas K-content increased from 340,619 cases in 2022 to 500,089 cases in 2023, then 836,567 cases in 2024, before dropping to 648,501 cases last year. Over the same period, successful takedowns increased from 184,025 to 209,033, then 228,981, and 243,374 cases.

However, the deletion rate declined from 54.0% in 2022 to 41.8% in 2023, and 27.4% in 2024, before rising again to 37.5% last year and 40.5% as of August this year.

By genre, illegal distribution was most concentrated in webtoons. As of August this year, there were 342,285 takedown requests for webtoons, accounting for 71.3% of the total. Broadcast content followed with 118,052 cases, then publications with 14,767 cases, films with 3,790, games with 648, character content with 455, and music with 208.

The trend of illegal webtoon distribution was also clearly rising. The number of takedown requests increased from 120,734 in 2022 to 205,116 in 2023, 393,038 in 2024, and 469,313 last year. This year, within just eight months, the requests already reached 72.9% of last year's annual figure.

By language, English-speaking regions accounted for the highest number at 119,137 cases. This was followed by Russian-speaking regions with 94,372 cases, Indonesian-speaking regions with 71,749, Chinese-speaking regions with 63,113, Vietnamese-speaking regions with 47,257, and Thai-speaking regions with 26,742.

In particular, the number of cases in Russian- and Indonesian-speaking regions has already surpassed last year's total within just eight months this year. In Russian-speaking regions, the number increased by 20.7% from 78,164 cases in 2025 to 94,372 cases as of August this year. In Indonesian-speaking regions, cases increased by 14.0% from 60,924 last year to 71,749 as of August this year.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Copyright Protection Agency explained that, as domestic copyright law does not apply to illegal sites operated in local foreign languages, there are no legal means to compel compliance with takedown requests. They noted that individual site operators comply with some requests to avoid legal disputes or to maintain advertising revenue.

Assemblyman Lee stated, "We need to establish a robust overseas copyright protection system tailored to the regions where K-content is expanding and the genres most affected."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.