Kakao Entertainment said on the 19th that it won a civil lawsuit against the operator of Ajitun, the country's largest illegal webtoon and web novel distribution site.
The lawsuit was filed jointly with Naver Webtoon as co-plaintiff, and the court fully granted each plaintiff's claim for 1 billion won in damages, recognizing a total liability of 2 billion won.
Ajitun is the largest illegal site in Korea that unlawfully distributed about 750,000 webtoons and about 2.5 million web novels. On Aug. 2024, through a joint investigation by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Daejeon District Prosecutors' Office, the operator was arrested, and later received a two-year prison sentence in a criminal trial. The same sentence was upheld on appeal.
Ajitun has been criticized for causing enormous damage to creators and the broader content industry by posting a massive volume of webtoons and web novels without authorization over a long period. Kakao Entertainment and Naver Webtoon filed civil lawsuits seeking 1 billion won in damages each, and during the proceedings submitted estimated damages in the hundreds of billions of won based on distribution scale and operation period. The court accepted this, fully granting each plaintiff's claim amount, and ordered payment of damages along with delay interest and provisional execution.
A Kakao Entertainment official said, "This ruling is the result of apprehension, criminal punishment, dismissal of appeal, and now a civil damages judgment against the country's largest illegal distribution site, reflecting collaboration between the public and private sectors combined with the industry's sustained response," adding, "We have built meaningful precedent for protecting copyrights in the webtoon and web novel industry."
Earlier, Kakao Entertainment actively responded to the case by submitting a petition for severe punishment together with the Council for Countering Illegal Webtoon Distribution (Kakao Entertainment, Naver Webtoon, Ridibooks, KidariStudio, Lezhin Entertainment, Toptoon, Toomics).
Lee Ho-jun, head of the legal office at Kakao Entertainment, said, "This ruling is meaningful as a case where both civil and criminal liability were recognized for large-scale copyright infringement, and is significant in that it confirms the scale and persistence of the illegal distribution," adding, "We will continue to enhance our response system centered on our dedicated anti-piracy unit and, when necessary, pursue legal actions such as complaints and lawsuits in parallel to fulfill our responsibility to protect creators' rights."