Excessively Raunchy Videos Are Guilty

For the first time, the Seoul central district court ruled Internet portal sites that offer adult-oriented videos which have passed the governmental deliberations as guilty.

Lee Byung-se, a judge of the court, said on February 1 that Kim (43), who was prosecuted without detention, was fined seven million won on January 26 on the charge of offering adult-oriented videos containing sexual intercourse to Internet portal sites.

The court said, “Just because the videos were approved by the Moving Pictures Deliberation Committee, it does not mean they are free from the judgment on whether or not they are lewd. The final judgment is to be made by the judicial system.”

The court added, “Even though the videos offered by Kim do not show genitals, they continuously show primarily sexual intercourse. The videos are nothing less than obscene material made only to make profits by stimulating people’s curiosity about sex.”

Kim was prosecuted without detention on the charge of providing 12 obscene videos to popular portal sites and charging 2,000 won per person to view them.

Naver and Yahoo Korea were summarily indicted with a fine of 15 million won but later referred to a court. They are now on the first trial.