Nothing new on the Tokyo arrests, but The Korea Times has an article on internet comics sharing that estimates the loss to publishers at 60 billion won ($60 million) last year, which approaches the legit comics market of about 70 billion won.
In response, the [Korea Cartoonist Association] has taken steps to crack down on the copyright violation in cooperation with online security firms. Last year alone, it filed complaints against 15 violators. One of them was even slapped with a 5 million won in fine. “Among the violators, one had images of more than 20,000 comic books,’’ Kim Woo-sung, head of Defender System, a copyright protection firm. “It was like a small comics library.’’
According to the article, Korea is flooded with free internet sites, and artists are actually reluctant to take action for fear of backlash:
In the case of an artist with an initial K, he has drawn many complaints and harsh words from readers after he vowed to bring a copyright violation of his work to court. “Many readers are still not aware that the scanning and reading of the scanned images is no different from theft,’’ You said.
(Via The Comics Reporter.)
