Overseas piracy of K-content nears 500 mln cases in 2025: lawmaker

Seoul, October 12 - The number of Korean content being illegally distributed overseas surged to nearly 500 million cases in 2025, marking the highest figure since 2022, according to a lawmaker. The Korea Copyright Protection Agency reported 493.6 million piracy cases last year, a 19.2 percent increase from the previous year, with 2022 seeing a record 477.1 million cases when data collection began.

Webtoons constituted the majority of piracy cases, accounting for 66.5 percent of the total, followed by films and broadcasts at 33.5 percent. English-language content accounted for 46.6 percent of reported cases, with Chinese language content at 20.4 percent and Southeast Asian languages at 15.7 percent. While the English language piracy cases decreased by 17 percentage points compared to the previous year, languages from Southeast Asian countries and Europe, such as Vietnamese, Thai, Spanish, and French, saw an increase.

Despite the surge in digital piracy, only 243,374 cases of illegally distributed content were deleted, representing less than 0.1 percent of all reported cases. Rep. Jeong Jun-ho, who submitted the data to the Korea Copyright Protection Agency, emphasized the need for more teams to monitor digital piracy and enhanced cooperation with foreign authorities to combat the issue.