The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the Motion Picture Association’s anti-piracy organization, has expanded its membership to include the influential webcomic platform Naver Webtoon, marking a significant expansion into an area of IP creation that’s surged in global relevance in recent years.
Naver Webtoon is the first and only webcomic and webnovel company to join ACE to date, as well as the first Korean-originated company to sign on to the organization’s mission. The company is part of the Nasdaq-listed Webtoon Entertainment, a driving force behind the explosive popularity of webcomics around the world — especially in Asia — which has created a new generation of star comic creators. The company’s content has also become an important source of IP for the global industry, with its two studios – Wattpad Webtoon Studios in the U.S. and Korea’s Studio N – behind a string of hit story concepts adapted by the global streamers, including Netflix‘s All of Us Are Dead, Hellbound and Sweet Home; Disney+’s Connect and Vigilante; Crunchyroll’s Tower of God and The God of High School; and scores more locally produced titles.
“Webcomics have transformed entertainment and fandom around the world, enabling storytellers everywhere to share their voice,” said Webtoon Entertainment founder and CEO Junkoo Kim. “As the first webcomic company to join ACE, we’re proud to continue to protect creators and raise global awareness of the seriousness of illegal distribution. Working alongside ACE and industry partners, we look forward to finding opportunities for joint responses and working together to tackle illegal content distribution.”
First launched in 2017 by the MPA and many of the world’s media and technology companies to jointly combat the online piracy, ACE now comprises over 50 members, including all of the major Hollywood studios and content companies spanning Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.
“Bringing Naver Webtoon into ACE’s ranks builds upon our expansion in the Asia Pacific, our growth worldwide, and our mission to protect intellectual property in every form,” added Charles Rivkin, chairman and CEO of the MPA and chairman of ACE. “From Korea to California and points in between, our coalition is always on the lookout for new footholds in key markets – to build ties with local law enforcement and strengthen our work to detect, deter, and dismantle a piracy ecosystem that steals content, endangers consumers, and threatens the creative economy.”