Proposed by Uri party lawmaker Woo Sang-ho, the bill forces Internet companies to supervise file transactions between their users, and to delete or stop them when the contents are copyrighted materials such as music or video files.
The bill also says that the companies would be punished for up to 50 million won in penalty, if they don’t follow the government’s instruction. After the reports on the bill came out, the homepage of ruling Uri party lawmaker Woo Sang-ho was shut down on Wednesday as Internet users swarmed to the bulletin board to post complaints and even curses.
Major portal sites such as Naver were covered with thousands of protests from users, too. The Korea Internet Corporations Association also said Wednesday that it is opposing Woo’s bill, because it will severely damage both the Internet industry and online contents market of South Korea.
"It is a naïve idea that would kill the emerging Internet industry," said the association in a statement. "even if there can be a short-term effects in protecting digital rights. But in the long term it will not benefit the contents’ owners, let alone the Internet users and service providers."
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