How Much Did It Cost To Catch And Sue Sojang? Jang Won-young’s Lawyer Explained The Whole Process
On February 8th, Jang Won-young’s legal representative revealed the process of suing Sojang through YouTube. Having won some parts of the lawsuit against the controversial YouTuber Sojang, Jang Won-young’s legal representative unveiled the background of how they found Sojang’s identity.
Jang Won-young’s side achieved a partial victory in the lawsuit claiming 100 million won in damages against Park, the operator of the YouTube channel Sojang, on December 21st last year. In addition, Park is also undergoing other separate civil and criminal lawsuits filed by Jang Won-young’s agency Starship Entertainment.
When asked if it was difficult to catch Sojang, Jang Won-young’s legal representative said, “We only knew that the person was operating the channel, and we neither knew their name or address so it was hard to file a complaint even if we applied for it. Even if we file a complaint with an investigative agency, we can no longer proceed with the investigation. Since YouTube users’ identity information is stored on Google’s overseas servers and it is impossible to conduct seizure and search aboard, most cases have been suspended or canceled.”
However, Jang Won-young and Starship managed to uncover Sojang operator’s identity and deactivate the account. In this regard, the lawyer said, “We applied to the US court that has jurisdiction over Google for an order to provide information. The YouTube channel Sojang disappeared on the day Google notified them that they had received a court order”, adding “Google did not deactivate the account, but Google received a court order to disclose information and served it. Sojang decided to delete the account themselves because they felt legally responsible”.
Why was this lawsuit important to Starship? The lawyer said, “Defamatory and malicious comments insulting celebrities, such as fake news, are spreading and being reproduced a lot these days, causing disruptions not only to our company’s operations but to fans as they protested seriously. When the incident reached a critical point, identifying the perpetrator and making an announcement provided a sense of relief to the fans”, adding “There have been continuous requests, such as ‘Please make sure to catch Sojang’. That was our purpose and we’re in the process of holding them criminally responsible”.
When asked about the cost of the complaint, the legal representative shared, “In cases where it was extremely difficult to identify the perpetrator like this one, we had to handle three civil cases and one criminal case domestically and also filed a lawsuit in the US. I can say that it costs much more than that of a regular case”.
Emphasizing that Starship is the only agency that successfully sued Sojang, the lawyer added, “Other agencies can actually try to hold them responsible even after we revealed the identity of Sojang. However, the account and the posts already disappeared. They’ve already benefited from Starship lawsuit so they don’t take action anymore”.
Source: Daum
