Date: November 7, 2024 @ 9:30am in HG 1070
SK Broadband VS Netflix
In December of last year, Amazon's Twitch, the world's largest gaming video platform, terminated its South Korea service after inexplicably degrading video quality there for about a year. On a related note, starting in 2016, South Korean internet companies began to suffer from exorbitant internet access fees, which were eight times London and Paris, and five to six times those in LA and NY, resulting in a significant shift in the financial and network environment for the online startups that contribute to and mediate K-culture. Finally, tensions escalated to a legal showdown between major players, namely Netflix and SK Broadband, involving a heavy barrage of tropes such as "network neutrality," "reverse discrimination," "digital sovereignty," "free-riding," "FTA violation," and "digital protectionism." Individual cultural producers, such as YouTube influencers, chimed in, as the effects of this environmental change were poised to impact them as well. In this talk, we will attempt to unravel these controversies, which will have a lasting impact on South Korea's cultural ecosphere and beyond, as similar rule changes are being discussed in Brazil, India, Europe, and the rest of the world.
Kyung Sin PARK (“KS Park”), Professor of Korea University Law School (AB in Physics, Harvard University, Class of 1992; and JD, UCLA Law School, Class of 1995).
Recently, he has traveled the world to defend network neutrality by publicly sharing his research findings. He has successfully advocated against the sender pay rule proposed by South Korean legislature (Sept 2022) and a similar proposal in Indonesia (2021). He provided consultation on the sender pay rule to EU’s telecom regulator BEREC (Sept 2022, April 2023, also see related publication) and to the Brazilian regulator ANATEL (April 2024) after which both regulators veered away from the proposed rulemaking. Most recently, he also consulted with the Colombian regulator CRC and other LATAM regulators (August 2024) on the same issue.