Korea Intellectual Property Office to seek criminal penalties for digital replica infringement

The Korea Intellectual Property Office said it will pursue legislation to sharpen penalties for violations of publicity rights, adding criminal liability for digital replicas and a basis for ordering online shopping platforms to block infringing material.

The office, headed by Minister Kim Yong-sun, said it accepted the National Assembly's criticism during its audit of how celebrity digital replicas are misused and would focus on institutional changes and securing budget to make enforcement more effective. Digital replicas are likenesses or voices of real people reproduced or synthesized to closely resemble the originals using artificial intelligence and advanced manipulation techniques such as deepfakes.

Lawmakers across party lines used the audit to point to the severity of harm from the production and distribution of AI-generated composite and altered material, and called for fundamental fixes and a system to respond preemptively to similar cases.

The office has strengthened protection of publicity rights since a 2022 amendment to the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act brought the unauthorized commercial use of a celebrity's likeness or voice into the law as a distinct category of unfair competition. But content synthesizing or imitating those attributes has proliferated online as AI technology has advanced, and such conduct has not been properly policed or blocked.

The three-track plan starts with explicitly covering digital replicas among the infringements regulated under the unfair competition law. It also introduces criminal punishment for publicity-right infringement. Because digital replicas generate remarks and actions the real person never made and can spread in large volumes within a short time, they can cause substantial consumer harm. Once such content circulates online, it is difficult to recover fully, and it continues to be copied and distributed while victims pursue civil suits.

To secure stronger judicial deterrence and build a swift, specialized investigative system, the office will push to establish a criminal basis and include the offense in the scope of duties of its special judicial police.

The third track would create a legal basis for requesting cooperation from online shopping intermediaries, or platforms, in blocking infringing material. Working through a public-private protection council launched in June, the office collects infringement cases quickly, and it plans to use coordination with platforms to establish the facts of unfair competition promptly and to activate its administrative investigative powers.

"The key to solving the digital replica problem lies in guaranteeing enforcement effectiveness," Minister Kim said. "We will push for related legislative revisions as soon as possible to build a law enforcement system suited to the AI environment."