Culture ministry closes three North Africa-based piracy websites

The culture ministry said it had closed three North Africa-based websites that illegally distributed Korean webtoons and web novels after an international investigation.

Investigators opened the case in March after Naver Webtoon flagged the infringement. Authorities shut all three platforms in mid-July and arrested one operator in North Africa.

The ministry said its Copyright Special Judicial Police Division, established June 30, worked with the National Police Agency, Interpol's I-SOP project, local authorities, Korean embassy police officers and Naver Webtoon on the investigation.

The sites copied and distributed 83,688 works without authorization, including 30,926 Korean webtoons and 5,202 web novels. Korean content accounted for about 57% of the material on the platforms.

They were the first to distribute paid material, scanning and translating content from official services into English. The ministry said further redistribution could cause much greater additional losses, while industry estimates put annual losses to the Korean content industry at about 20 billion won ($14.1 million).

"As Korean content's stature rises worldwide, copyright infringement targeting it is also becoming more sophisticated and widespread," Kim Jae-hyun, the ministry's cultural media industry director, said.