Hankook Economic Daily has recently released a new user agreement to strengthen the protection of its own content. Starting in the first half of 2024, this policy prohibits all forms of reproduction and distribution—including article scraping, comments, sharing, etc.—and explicitly states that unauthorized copying, redistribution or capturing may result in legal liability.
The main provisions are as follows:
① All articles, photographs, videos, and other materials provided by Hankook Economic Daily (referred to herein as “Hankook”) are copyrighted works protected under copyright law.
② Reproducing, duplicating, distributing, or capturing these works without prior permission is prohibited; this includes commercial use.
③ Violations may result in service restriction and civil and criminal liability.
These measures directly affect user activities such as article scraping and posting comments. For example, users cannot copy or distribute Hankook articles to other websites or social media, and sharing them for personal or corporate purposes without payment is potentially subject to legal action.
A Hankook representative stated that “by tightening copyright protection we aim to secure the integrity of information and create an environment where readers and businesses can use content legally.” He added that these measures are intended to clarify responsibility for copyrighted works while preserving freedom of speech.
Finally, Hankook urges users to comply with this policy and warns that violations may lead to service restriction and civil or criminal legal liability. With these measures in place, users will be required to obtain prior permission when using content, and unauthorized reproduction or distribution is recognized as unlawful conduct.