SEOUL, February 25, 2025 – Kakao Entertainment has released its sixth whitepaper on illegal content distribution, marking a major milestone as the first in the industry to establish a comprehensive anti-piracy framework that extends beyond webtoons to include web novels. This latest whitepaper details the company’s expanded enforcement efforts, reporting a total of 240 million illegal content removals worldwide in the second half of 2024, as well as strengthened measures leveraging its Trusted Copyright Removal Program(TCRP) partnership and a systematic approach to tackling unauthorized derivative works.

Expanding the Fight Against Web Novel Piracy

The sixth whitepaper, released on February 25, 2025, documents the achievements of Kakao Entertainment’s Illegal Distribution Response Team (P.CoK) from July to December 2024. A key highlight is P.CoK’s pilot crackdown on Kakao Entertainment’s exclusive web novels, during which it targeted approximately 150,000 global illegal distribution cases from October to December last year, after categorizing the types of illegal content. During this period, the company identified the operator of the illegal English-language web novel site ‘W’ and shut down the site as well. It also targeted piracy networks across open platforms, e-commerce sites, blogs, and unauthorized translation channels in North America.

This marks a significant evolution from what was documented in the company’s first five whitepapers, which primarily focused on webtoon piracy. The sixth edition introduces a refined enforcement framework tailored specifically for web novels, making it the first in the industry to establish a comprehensive response system for both webtoons and web novels.

Leveraging Google TCRP for More Efficient and Scalable Crackdowns

The expansion of enforcement capabilities was further accelerated by Kakao Entertainment’s selection as a Google TCRP partner in July 2024—the first among South Korea’s entertainment companies. Unlike webtoons, which have a more centralized distribution structure, text-based web novels face a wider range of illegal distribution channels, making traditional monitoring and takedown efforts challenging.

However, as a TCRP partner, Kakao Entertainment has the authority to process large-scale takedown requests directly, enabling faster and more efficient enforcement. Since acquiring TCRP status as an IP rights holder, the company has reported and removed 539,000 cases of illegal content worldwide, including 150,000 web novels. This marks a 30-fold increase in its enforcement capacity, now handling up to 30,000 takedown requests per day as of October 2024, which is a dramatic rise from pre-TCRP levels.

Continued Success in Global Piracy Crackdowns

Kakao Entertainment’s anti-piracy efforts remain strong, with a total of 240 million cases of global illegal content removed in the second half of 2024 alone, bringing its cumulative takedown count across six whitepapers to 740 million. While this figure represents a 10.9% decrease compared to the 270 million takedowns recorded in the fifth whitepaper, this decline is largely attributed to the August 2024 shutdown of a major domestic piracy site, ‘A’, which had been under long-term monitoring by P.CoK. The case underscores the critical role of site shutdowns in reducing overall piracy activity. Kakao Entertainment has consistently emphasized that shutting down a site by identifying its operator is at the core of its response to illegal distribution.

Further reinforcing this strategy, P.CoK’s efforts led to the closure of the Indonesian piracy site ‘M’ in September 2024 and the dismantling of a Brazilian illegal translation group, also known as ‘M,’ in October 2024. To date, the team has successfully shut down 14 major illegal sites across multiple language markets, including English and Arabic.

Increased Removals on Google Transparency Report

Kakao Entertainment has also significantly increased its visibility on Google’s Transparency Report, a public record of content removal requests from governments and organizations worldwide.

As of December 2024, the company ranked 6th globally in content takedown requests, maintaining the same ranking as in April 2024 (as reported in the fifth whitepaper), but achieving a sharp increase in the number of removals. The total number of reported and removed cases grew from 211 million in April 2024 to 368 million in December 2024, marking a 74.5% increase. Over the eight-month period from April to December, Kakao Entertainment averaged 20 million takedown requests per month, demonstrating how it has scaled up its enforcement capabilities.

Expanding Enforcement to Unauthorized Derivative Works

Beyond webtoons and web novels, Kakao Entertainment has also expanded its anti-piracy scope to include unauthorized secondary content. The sixth whitepaper introduces a structured classification system for derivative works, covering items such as unauthorized printed books, photo cards, posters, phone cases, and clothing. With this enhanced approach, the company has successfully identified and removed unauthorized merchandise distributed through global e-commerce platforms, further protecting its intellectual property from misuse.

“Kakao Entertainment’s anti-piracy team, P.CoK, was the first of its kind in the industry, and it has since grown into the leading organization driving and “sharing” new, advanced enforcement strategies.” said Lee Ho-jun, Head of legal department of Kakao Entertainment and lead of P.CoK. “With the publication of this sixth whitepaper, we have now established the first-ever structured enforcement framework for both webtoons and web novels. Moving forward, we will continue expanding our efforts to protect not only our webtoons and web novels but all our IPs.”