Operator of Illegal Webtoon Site OKToon Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison
The operator of OKToon, a major illegal webtoon piracy site, has been sentenced to prison by a South Korean court.On May 26, the Daejeon District Court sentenced the defendant (identified as A) to three years in prison and ordered a forfeiture of about US$510,000 for violating copyright law.A was found guilty of operating several piracy platforms, including OKToon — which illegally distributed hundreds of thousands of webtoon files — as well as the illegal video streaming sites NunuTV and TVWiki. The sites offered unauthorized access to a vast amount of copyrighted content from domestic and international streaming services and webtoon publishers. The team seized the domains of Nunu TV, TVWiki, and OKToon, redirecting access routes to a “Domain Seizure Notice” page, effectively preventing the transmission or distribution of unauthorized copied works.To evade law enforcement, A ran the servers from countries including the Dominican Republic and Paraguay and frequently changed domain names. Despite these efforts, A was arrested in November 2024 through a joint investigation involving the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's Copyright Crime Investigation Unit; the prosecution; and INTERPOL.Judge Young-sik Ko stated, “The defendant committed large-scale, systematic infringement of property rights for financial gain over an extended period. These copyright crimes not only damage the revenue streams of creators but also weaken creative motivation and harm cultural development.”In March 2025, seven major webtoon companies — Kakao Entertainment, Naver WEBTOON, RIDI, Lezhin Entertainment, Kidari Studio, Toptoon, and Toomics — called for strict legal action against the operator of OKToon.The Webtoon Anti-Piracy Coalition, which represents these companies, submitted a petition to the Daejeon District Court on March 12, urging the maximum legal penalty against OKToon's operator, A.Source: YNA (So-yeon Kim)
