Restaurant ordered to pay Park Seo Joon 5 million won for using drama scenes as ad without permission
A Korean restaurant that illegally used a scene from Park Seo Joon's drama in its advertisements has been ordered to pay the actor 5 million won (around P206,884).
The Seoul Eastern District Court's Civil Affairs Department 13, presided over by Judge Seok Joon-hyeop, ruled in favor of Park in the lawsuit against the marinated crab restaurant that served as a filming location for the 2018 romcom What's Wrong With Secretary Kim.
“Even if a celebrity’s likeness or name is publicly known, it cannot be used for someone else’s business without their consent,” the court said. “However, we also considered the relatively small size of the restaurant owner’s business, the nature of his operations, the form and duration of the portrait rights infringement, and other factors.”
Park's agency, Awesome Entertainment, informed the Korean news outlet OSEN that they had filed a damage claim lawsuit against the owner of the restaurant. This action came after they repeatedly asked him to "stop the postings" that used the Park's images without permission.
“We repeatedly asked for the ads to be taken down since 2019, but despite removing them from portal search ads and banners at times, the owner would repost them and eventually stopped responding to further requests,” they said, as translated by Korea JoongAng Daily. “These egregious actions led to the lawsuit.”
In one of the scenes in the drama, Park was eating marinated soy crab with his girlfriend's family at a restaurant.
The owner of the place created a banner posted inside and outside of the restaurant for almost five years, with the text, “The place where Park Seo Joon did soy sauce marinated crab mukbang.”
Park's agency clarified that the "damages based on advertising model fees could amount to 6 billion won," however, they only filed for 60 million won, considering the scale of the business and other circumstances."
“We have confirmed that malicious mockery and defamation, which constitute secondary harm, are ongoing despite the fair ruling,” it added. “We will respond firmly to any violations of our actor’s likeness and personal rights without leniency or settlement.”
The restaurant owner, for his part, said that "it is a common practice for the promotional materials of the drama sponsor to use photos from the drama."
The 2018 South Korean series is based on a novel by Jung Kyung-yoon and later serialized into a webtoon. It follows Lee Young-joon, played by Park, a vice chairman of a major corporation who does whatever he can to keep his highly capable secretary Kim Mi-so, originally played by Park Min-young, who wants to resign after nine years.
