Cases Where Only “Non-Commercial Use ONLY” Terms Are Violated Should Not Face Criminal Investigation
On October 17, 2025, the Seoul Central District Court (Case No. 2025No614) delivered a not guilty verdict on appeal in a copyright infringement criminal trial involving the use of a font program, which was finalized on October 25, 2025. OpenNet has been working to defend against lawsuits related to what is known as “copyright settlement money business” – where free fonts are provided and then used as grounds for filing numerous criminal and civil lawsuits claiming copyright violations.
This case involved a font program copyright holder company that filed criminal charges against an individual printing business operator claiming copyright violation, with OpenNet supporting the defendant to secure a not guilty verdict. The printing business operator had used the font for printing posters.
In this case, the individual printing business operator used for commercial purposes a font program presumably downloaded from Naver’s free font message board. When the font program copyright holder company proposed a settlement of 3.6 million won but the operator refused, they filed criminal charges. The prosecutor requested a summary order, which resulted in a 300,000 won fine, but the defendant requested a formal trial and received a not guilty verdict at first instance. The prosecutor appealed, but the not guilty verdict was ultimately confirmed on appeal.
The court emphasized the existing Supreme Court precedent that when a copyright holder distributes a free font program to users, even if users download and use it contrary to the terms of service, while they may be liable for breach of contract and non-performance of obligations, this cannot constitute a copyright violation.
“When a person who has received permission from the intellectual property rights holder to copy a computer program by installation uses the program by installing it on an auxiliary storage device such as a computer hard disk drive (HDD), this constitutes use of the work by a person authorized to use it within the scope of the authorized method and conditions of use. Even if such a user who has been authorized to copy violates the usage methods or conditions of the program established by contract with the copyright holder, while the user may be liable for breach of contract and non-performance of obligations, this cannot be seen as infringement of the copyright holder’s right of reproduction (see Supreme Court Decision 2015Da1017, 1024, 1031, 1048, decided November 23, 2017).”
What is regrettable is that despite this already established legal principle, the prosecutor requested a summary order and even appealed the first instance not guilty verdict. In the appeal brief, the prosecutor stated that “the issue is whether the defendant arbitrarily downloaded and used the font file knowing that it should not be used for profit,” appealing without properly understanding the legal principles regarding this copyright violation charge, and ultimately failing to even specify which rights of the copyright holder were violated. Contrary to the prosecutor’s misunderstanding, the issue in the case is whether the defendant infringed the copyright holder company’s right of reproduction, and whether it was proven that the defendant copied the font program without authorization. This raises suspicion that the appeal was made mechanically without examining the relevant legal principles. Ultimately, public authority was exploited for copyright settlement money business.
This case once again highlights the need to improve the practice of prosecutors mechanically handling cases without properly understanding established legal principles, and the need for institutional improvements to prevent copyright from being abused as a means of settlement money business. In particular, copyright infringement that does not cause organized and industrial harm should not be subject to criminal investigation or punishment, and cases like this one – where free fonts that were advertised and promoted as such were used while failing to comply with detailed usage conditions in the font license agreement – should never have been subject to criminal investigation or punishment in the first place. Of course, this case resulted in a not guilty verdict because it was legally clear that it was not copyright infringement, but prosecutors and police should not have allowed the defendant to be embroiled in litigation for such a long time. Open Net will continue its legal support and legislative reform activities to protect citizens from copyright abuse.
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