The court has made its decision, and the ruling is now final.
Korean news outlet Herald Corp revealed in an exclusive report that actor Park Seo Joon (also known as Park Seo Jun) filed a lawsuit against Mr. A, an owner of a raw marinated crab restaurant, who provided the business space for the shoot of Park’s popular tvN K-Drama What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim?
According to the report, Park Seo Joon claimed that Mr. A used the scene from the K-Drama to promote the restaurant without the actor’s consent, thus infringing on Park Seo Joon’s portrait rights.
The disputed event dates back to July 2018, when, in What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim?, Park Seo Joon ate raw marinated crab to win over the actress Park Min Young‘s character’s family.
About a year later, when Mr. A created banners using a still from the K-Drama with slogans like, “The restaurant where Park Seo Joon devoured crabs” and “The crab dish even Park Seo Joon fell in love with.” Mr. A displayed the banners inside and outside the restaurant from August 2019 until September 2024. Mr. A also ran Naver search ads for about six years.
After discovering Mr. A’s banners, Park Seo Joon filed a damages lawsuit, stating that Mr. A was violating his portrait rights. The actor’s legal team is reported to have initially claimed ₩6.00 billion KRW (about $4.44 million USD) in damages, calculating ₩1.00 billion KRW (about $739,000 USD) per year based on the average endorsement fees that Park Seo Joon charges, multiplied over six years of violation.
Mr. A is said to have argued that it’s “common business practice for K-Drama sponsors to use such scenes for promotional purposes,” but the court ultimately decided in Park Seo Joon’s favor. Reportedly, the court only awarded ₩5.00 million KRW (about $3,700 USD). Each side was ruled to cover their own legal costs. The ruling is now final, as neither Park Seo Joon nor Mr. A appealed the court’s decision—and Mr. A has removed the banners and taken the ads down.
Following the news, netizens expressed a bit of disappointment in Park Seo Joon for being “petty” and suing a small business owner for a whopping ₩6.00 billion KRW (about $4.44 million USD).
- “That 6 billion claim is seriously petty.”
- “Wow… okay, got it. This shows Park Seo Joon’s true character, LOL.”
- “Even 5 million won is a lot for a small business owner.”
- “I have never seen a single sponsor for a filming location get a happy ending…”
- “Just wow.”
- “I’m disappointed.”
- “Can you even make 6 billion won selling raw crabs? What kind of bogus formula yields 6 billion for Park Seo Joon’s promo? What gives celebs the right… suing is way too easy for them.”
- “Wow…”
- “Park Seo Joon is seriously spiteful.”
- “What the f*ck?”
- “He thinks he’s worth 1 billion won per year, huh…? Most people can’t even make 100 million won a year. Why go this far?”
- “This is so stingy, seriously.”
His management, awesome.ent, has since clarified via MBC that “the actual lawsuit sought ₩60.0 million KRW (about $44,400 USD)” and threatened legal action against “secondary harm” over the lawsuit itself.
We had repeatedly requested the advertisements be taken down since 2019, but the restaurant would take down the portal search ads and banners only to put them back up again. Later, they ignored all further takedown requests. These malicious actions led to the lawsuit. While the estimated damages based on standard advertising model fees amount to 6 billion won, the actual lawsuit sought 60 million won, taking into account the defendant’s business size and other relevant circumstances.
We have also confirmed that secondary harm is ongoing, including malicious mockery and defamation regarding the rightful court ruling. We will respond to any acts that infringe on our actor’s portrait and personal rights without leniency or settlement.
— awesome.ent
Watch the crab mukbang scene in question here:
