Actor Park Seo Jun (37) filed a lawsuit for damages against a restaurant that unlawfully advertised a scene featuring a "crab sauce eating show" from a drama and won part of the case.
On the 3rd, according to the 13th Civil Affairs Division of the Seoul Eastern District Court (Director General Seok Jun Hyup), Park Seo Jun partially won the damages lawsuit filed against Restaurant A.
The court stated, "Restaurant A must compensate Park Seo Jun 5 million won," adding that "even though the likeness and name of a celebrity were made public, they should not be used unlawfully for someone else's business without permission. Considering all circumstances, including the relatively small scale of Restaurant A, we reached this decision." Neither party appealed, confirming the first-instance ruling.
In the 2018 broadcast of tvN's "What's Wrong with Secretary Kim?", there was a scene where Park Seo Jun's character, Lee Young Jun, deliciously eats crab sauce to win the favor of his girlfriend Kim Mi So's (Park Min Young) family.
About a year later, Restaurant A created banners using this scene in their advertising materials, labeling it as "the place where Park Seo Jun had a storm of crab sauce eating" and "the crab sauce restaurant that even Park Seo Jun fell in love with."
Restaurant A promoted their business using these banners both inside and outside the restaurant for about 5 years, from August 2019 to September of the previous year, and also ran Naver search advertisements for about 6 years.
The agency Awesome ENT stated on the 3rd, "We requested several times to stop the postings since 2019, but they continued the malicious act of repeatedly posting and removing advertisements on portal sites and banners for 6 years, leading to this lawsuit," adding, "Initially, they took it down but put it back up again; later, they did not respond to requests to take it down, prompting the lawsuit."
"The estimated damage amount considering the advertising model fee is 6 billion won, while the actual claim amount is 60 million won," it noted, "We considered the defendant's business scale and other circumstances. We confirmed that there is ongoing secondary harm involving malicious mockery and defamation concerning the rightful court ruling. We plan to respond without leniency or settlement against actions infringing on rights of portrait and personal rights."