Digital pirates of Korean blockbuster to face heavy punishment

SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Yonhap) -- Prosecutors Wednesday warned of heavy punishment for
those caught circulating pirated copies of the South Korean blockbuster
"Haeundae," which are feared to cause heavy losses and tarnish the reputation of
the Korean cinema industry.
The big-budget disaster flick about a tsunami that hits a popular beach in the
Korean port city of Busan drew more than 10 million viewers as of last week,
becoming the fifth South Korean movie to reach the milestone.
"The level of punishment will be decided based on the amount of profit uploaders
made and the extent of the file's circulation," an official at Seoul's Supreme
Prosecutors' Office said, asking not to be named as he was not authorized to
speak to media on the issue.
Uploaders of illegally distributed copies will face heavy legal charges similar
to those who circulate copyrighted adult material on the Web, he added.
Police on Sunday began tracking down bootleg copies of "Haeundae" on a local
file-sharing site as the megahit film is being released overseas in some 24
countries, including China and the United States.
A relatively clean copy of the film was uploaded on the Web Saturday and was
downloaded more than 100,000 times by the time it was deleted a few hours later,
threatening the film's overseas releases and domestic profits, according to the
movie's distributor CJ Entertainment.
"We haven't even been able to accurately calculate the damage," said Lee
Chang-hyun of CJ. "The damage will be more severe as the file was released while
the movie is still running in theaters. We are also concerned of overseas buyers
changing their minds."
"Haeundae" is among the few South Korean films that held up well among a deluge
of Hollywood blockbusters this summer, venturing into the disaster genre normally
dominated by U.S. films. South Korean movies saw their worst sales figures in
eight years in 2008, falling by more than 20 percent from the previous year.
The incident broke as South Korean authorities were toughening punishments and
crackdowns on digital theft, which is blamed for annual losses of more than 2
trillion won in South Korea, the world's most wired country.
The size of the legal downloading market shrank by nearly 60 percent last year
from 2005, with nearly 20,000 files of copyrighted content circulating illegally
last year alone, according to government data.
In February, a court sentenced the heads of the country's four top Web portals to
one year in prison each and a fine of 30 million won after they were convicted of
facilitating illegal distribution of copyrighted content. It was the first
criminal case involving illegal on-line activity.
Last month, some 10,000 Korean Internet users were sued by an overseas adult
material producer for illegally sharing files on the Web.
hayney@yna.co.kr
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