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제 15 호 A Secret Share that Must Be Prevented

  • 작성일 2022-08-31
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Kicker: SOCIETY


A Secret Share that Must Be Prevented



by Ji-Min Baek, Cub-reporter

pjm5875@naver.com


  Have you ever used illegal websites to read webtoons for free, or witnessed illegal webtoon websites using the internet? Even if you have not used it, I expect you have probably seen illegal webtoon sites at least once. This is because illegal webtoon sites are so popular that they are easy to find just by searching for them. In addition, as the K-Webtoons grow, webtoon paid platforms are created, and therefore also illegal distribution sites. These illegal webtoon sites are causing enormous damage not only to copyright infringement but also to contents revenue. Therefore, to prevent this, large webtoon sites, such as Naver, are developing technologies to prevent illegal secret sharing.



Webtoon Illegal Distribution Site Behavior

  According to the 2021 Webtoon Business Survey Report by the Korea Creative Content Agency, the amount of infringement in the legal webtoon market due to webtoon piracy distribution services in 2020 is estimated to be 548.8 billion won, up 1.7 times from 318.3 billion won in 2019. Webtoon illegal distribution sites continue to increase every year, and similar sites appeared after the appearance of the ‘bam tokki’ in 2017, and it is believed that they slowed down for a while after the arrest of the ‘bam tokki’ management in 2018 and increased significantly again in 2019. The number of illegal distribution cases of webtoon is increasing. Illegal webtoon sites are continuously increasing, and 2,685 sites have been confirmed to be pirated worldwide, of which 272 sites are serviced in Korean as of the end of 2020. Following this trend, technologies that avoid monitoring technologies for crackdown on illegal copying are also continuously developing.

  According to the 2021 Webtoon Business Survey Report, teenage male students often accessed and used illegal distribution sites directly, and adults in their 30s and 40s often shared links through acquaintances. The main reason for their illegal use of webtoon was financial reasons for teenage male students, and adults in their 30s and 40s used the recommendations of acquaintances as a greater motivation. They expressed the advantage that on illegal webtoon distribution sites they can read webtoons for free and the latest ones can be viewed for free. In addition, compared to contents with good subscription services, such as movies and music, webtoons are easy to copy illegally and find illegal routes. 


Technology to Prevent Stealthy Sharing

  As we saw earlier, the damage caused by illegal webtoon distribution sites is great, and there are many users due to the easy-to-find route, so it is not easy to eradicate, but technologies to prevent these have recently been developed. 

https://copyright.or.kr/kcc/tmis/information/notice/view.do?brdctsno=45237&pageIndex=1&searchText=&servicecode=05&pageIndex=1&brdctsstatecode=&brdclasscode=&searchTarget=ALL&nationcode

  Naver Webtoon is developing and operating its own technology called ‘ToonRader’ system to prevent illegal distribution of content. In the case of Naver Webtoon, the ID of the user who captured the image through artificial intelligence technology ‘ToonRader’ is tracked only for paid sessions that are available only to members. The ToonRader system is a technology that identifies and blocks the first illegal leak by inserting user identification information invisible to webtoon images. In order for ToonRader technology to work, user-related information is first transplanted into a webtoon that is normally serviced. At this time, when a user who used a webtoon uploads a cloned webtoon for illegal purposes to an illegal webtoon service site, it is found on the ToonRader. Using this ToonRader, the largest ‘bam tokki’ site operator in Korea was arrested in May 2018. In addition, from July 2017 to the first half of this year, 94% of the nation’s first illegal sites, where webtoons are illegally shared, have been changed to secondary illegal sites that cannot directly distribute webtoons, or the server has been lowered.

  One of the representative achievements of ToonRader is the delay in the time when the latest paid episodes uploaded on the official platform are uploaded to illegal webtoon sharing sites. The latest paid episodes provided as a preview function become free over time, so delaying the time when they are illegally shared is the key to reducing damage. Seo Chung-hyun, a copyright protection technology team member at Naver Webtoon said, “The key to eradicating illegal sharing Webtoons is not how many illegal webtoons are caught, but how much the sharing period is delayed.”



  As mentioned in the article, the damage caused by illegal webtoon distribution sites is serious, and the protection of webtoon contents is becoming more important now that k-Webtoons are moving beyond Korea and overseas and produced as other contents such as movies and dramas. Technologies to illegally distribute webtoons are also being developed, and technologies to prevent them are also being created. In addition to these technologies, improving our perception that webtoons are free and individuals’ perception of using illegal materials will be important in preventing illegal distribution of webtoons.



Sources:

CrawlingFileDown.do (kocca.kr)

https://copyright.or.kr/kcc/tmis/information/notice/view.do?brdctsno=45237&pageIndex=1&searchText=&servicecode=05&pageIndex=1&brdctsstatecode=&brdclasscode=&searchTarget=ALL&nationcode

https://post.naver.com/viewer/postView.naver?volumeNo=34140213&memberNo=2886464&vType=VERTICAL