The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Minister HWANG Hee, MCST) and the Korean National Police Agency (Commissioner General KIM, Chang Yong, KNPA) cooperated with the International Criminal Police Organization (President AHMED Naser AL-Raisi, Interpol) to jointly crack down on copyright infringement sites that distributed illegal contents through overseas servers last year. The cooperative crack down activities led to arresting 207 site operators and heavy uploaders of 47 sites and 34 sites were closed.

  MCST for the first time issued red notice for those illegal website operators who first translated massive Korean webtoons and distributed overseas. The Ministry finally led those websites to close down by closely cooperating with the local investigation agency. This joint achievement was successful among MCST, KNPA, and Interpol by protecting digital rights management (DRM).

  MCST and KNPA have been jointly cracking down on illegal websites every year since the launch of the ‘Government Joint Countermeasures against Copyright Infringement’ in 2018 to eradicate online copyright infringement cases. In particular, since 2021 the two organization have signed MOU with Interpol on the 'Online Copyright Infringement Response Project (I-SOP)', leading the three organizations jointly respond to copyright infringement.

  Despite the continuous crackdown on illegal websites, including links and webtoons, arresting the operators or blocking the sites was challenging as those websites continued to operate using alternative sites through security servers and detour links. However, with the agreement and close cooperation among MCST, KNPA, and Interpol, it became more efficient and quicker to manage illegal overseas websites that cause great damage to domestic and foreign contents, and finally closing those illegal websites.

  This year illegal streaming sites and websites for Korean contents, such as webtoon industries, movies, and broadcasts are the main target for crack down on online violations. The close cooperation and investigation among three organizations will further concentrate on site blocking and closure to root out online infringement and violations on Korean contents.