Webtoon Piracy: What Should Rights Holders Monitor First?
If you hold webtoon or comic rights and are setting up piracy monitoring for the first time, start with the places a reader would actually find your work: replacement domains of sites that were already blocked, and search results for your titles. Takedowns alone rarely end a problem, because blocked sites tend to come back under new addresses. What you monitor first decides whether your records can show a pattern.
This guide is for the person at a webtoon studio or IP holder who has to decide where monitoring effort goes in the first month.
Why doesn't blocking a piracy site end the problem?
Because many blocked sites return under a new address. Korea's Broadcasting, Media and Communications Standards Commission issued 24,297 access-blocking corrective requests for copyright-infringing information from 2023 through August 2026. Of those, 16,390, or 67.5%, were sites that had to be reviewed again after changing their address or opening a replacement site, according to data submitted to lawmaker Hwang Jung-a and reported by Newsis and Edaily.
The same data showed one well-known webtoon piracy site going through this repeat review 137 times. During a National Assembly audit in October, one replacement domain was reported to have operated from September 28 to October 3 before access was blocked on October 4, with a new numbered address appearing on October 5.
Our reading: a block is a response to one address. If your records stop at the blocked URL, each replacement looks like a new case, and you lose the history that shows the same operator is back.
What should a rights holder monitor first?
We suggest ordering monitoring by how directly a source sends readers to an infringing copy. The table below is our own working checklist, not an industry standard.
Priority | Where to look | Why it comes first | What to record |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Replacement domains of sites already blocked | Returning sites already have an audience | Old and new address, first-seen date, same layout or naming |
2 | Search results for your titles | Lawmakers pointed out that piracy sites appear at the top of search results for their names | Query, rank, result URL, capture date |
3 | Newly released episodes | Newly released episodes have been reported on piracy sites the same day | Episode, release time, time first seen elsewhere |
4 | Overseas and translated copies | Korean access blocking only affects readers in Korea, not readers abroad | Language, host, whether the copy matches a version you sent out |
A record that keeps the old address, the new address and the dates together is what turns repeated takedowns into evidence of a pattern.
How is one large platform approaching it?
At least one large platform also works to identify who leaks content and who runs piracy sites. Edaily reported in October that Kakao Entertainment's anti-piracy team, "Peacock," monitors domestic and overseas illegal sites, removes infringing content, tracks operators and works with investigators, and has removed more than 1.1 billion pieces of illegal content in total. A team member told the paper that it is hard to stop leaks online completely.
Our reading: a platform protects what readers see on its own service. A studio or IP holder still has to watch for its titles across sites it does not control, and keep records it can hand to a platform, a lawyer or an agency.
Where does monitoring fit with other tools?
Monitoring tells you where copies are. It does not by itself tell you which distributed copy leaked, and it does not remove anything. Identifying a source needs a mark that differs per copy, such as a per-recipient watermark, applied before files go out. Removal still runs through notices, platforms and legal channels.
At MuseBlossom, K-TRACE is the leak monitoring feature of Contents Defence. It currently monitors more than 40 unauthorized distribution sites in Korea and overseas, with coverage expanding quickly, and has monitored more than 140,000 items so far. Linking monitoring results to watermark evidence for takedown requests is in a proof-of-concept stage.
What can monitoring not tell you?
A count of blocked or removed links is not a measure of how many people read the pirated copies, and it does not estimate lost revenue. The figures above come from regulator data and press reports for Korea; other markets may follow different patterns. Our priority table is a starting order, and the right order for a given studio depends on where its readers are.
FAQ
Should we monitor every piracy site at once?
Not at the start. Begin with replacement domains of sites already known to carry your titles, and with search results for those titles. Widen coverage once you have a recording format that keeps addresses and dates together.
Is a takedown count a useful metric?
It shows effort, not outcome. Tracking how often the same site returns, and how fast a new episode appears elsewhere, says more about whether the problem is shrinking.
Can monitoring identify who leaked an episode?
Not on its own. Monitoring finds copies. Tracing a specific source needs a per-copy mark applied before distribution.
Planning where to start monitoring your titles? Ask us about K-TRACE in Contents Defence using the form below.
Sources
Newsis, September 27, 2026 (in Korean): data on repeated access-blocking requests
Edaily, September 27, 2026 (in Korean): data on repeated access-blocking requests
IT Chosun, October 12, 2026 (in Korean): National Assembly audit on webtoon piracy
IT Chosun, October 13, 2026 (in Korean): same-day reposting of new episodes
Edaily, October 25, 2026 (in Korean): Kakao Entertainment's anti-piracy team