Recently, the South Korean Congress officially passed a more stringent anti-online piracy bill, comprehensively upgrading criminal and civil penalties for infringement, marking the country's digital copyright protection entering a higher intensity stage.
According to the new law, the maximum sentence for "serious copyright infringement" will be increased from the original five years in prison to seven years, and the maximum fine will be doubled from approximately US$34,000 to approximately US$68,000.
It is worth noting that the new regulations list "sharing or publishing links to pirated content" as an independent criminal offense for the first time. Even if you just forward relevant links on social media or forums, you may face legal prosecution. This provision is regarded as a major blow to past "gray communication behaviors".
It also introduces punitive damages of up to five times the rights holder’s actual damages and enables faster blocking of infringing websites.
Under current arrangements, most terms will formally come into effect in six months. Legal experts pointed out that by then, both content uploaders, link sharers, and relevant platform parties will bear higher compliance risks.
It should be emphasized that this law only applies within South Korea, but its strictness may have a demonstration effect on global digital copyright governance trends.