알 유 아 굿 다운로더?

A recent example of excessive "English" use in Korea, the "굿 다운로더" (Good Downloader) campaign.



Commercials featuring Korean actors are discouraging people from illegally downloading movies. There are a bunch available on Youtube, including:



Ah, I meant to write "discouraging people from illegally downloading Korean movies," because the Naver page, this "Good Downloader" page, and that commerical are referring to Korean ones.



The campaign isn't that new, but I've only started seeing the commercials on TV. From a Korea Times piece last month:

The anti-piracy campaign, ``I'm a Good Downloader,'' featuring top Korean stars garnered much interest Friday afternoon at the outdoor stage of the PIFF Village. Hallyu star Jang Dong-gun, who appears in the festival's opening film ``Good Morning President,'' and actresses Ha Ji-won and Uhm Jung-hwa, heroines of ``Haeundae,'' took part in the event.

"Haeundae recently suffered from piracy. This negatively affects our country as a whole, and I hope this can be an opportunity to change our downloading habits,'' said Ahn Sung-ki, veteran actor and director of the campaign.

This is Korea, and of course people will be concerned with protecting the local market. However, the hubbub over illegal copies of Korean movies online is especially ironic, considering South Korea is where copyright comes to die and is, dare I say, a "hub" of piracy. In September, as Chris in South Korea has written, the local entertainment industry was angry about illegal copies of the movie Haeundae available in China:

The Korean film industry is seething after a copy of the blockbuster "Haeundae" was found being illegally distributed over the internet last weekend, especially since the film had galvanized the industry by becoming the fifth Korean film ever to draw over 10 million viewers. Public calls for strong legal action against piracy are gaining support, but it might be too late to stop the spread of the bootleg overseas as it is already circulating on Chinese websites.

However, a trip to Seoul will show how easy it is to find bootleg copies of all the top movies, as you'll find vendors on busy intersections selling four for 10,000 won. Hell, at E-Mart last year I bought a copy of a Nintendo 64's "Mario Kart 64" ripped to a CD-ROM. Piracy is so rampant here that in 2008 both Warner Brothers and Sony have shut down DVD distribution in South Korea (though Warner Brothers has done what it needs to do to survive in this day and age). From the Korea Times last year:

Although Internet piracy is more of a concern, movie studios are frustrated about the private DVD copies sold on the streets. Street vendors camped in front of subway stations selling three to four private copies for a single 10,000 won bill are almost part of the landscape. In the film council’s survey, 8.1 percent of respondents said they have bought pirated DVD copies on the streets at least once.

This is to say nothing of piracy and "borrowing" of overseas music, pornography, software, designer brands, textbooks, and other intellectual property here. It's a little crass and hypocritical to worry about copyright infringement only when it concerns Korean products. People are taking the angle now that illegal downloading hurts Korea's film industry, but perhaps they could adjust that a little to hit on another common theme: __________ is bad for Korea's international image. Not simply because stealing makes Koreans look like, well, thieves, but because it discourages big companies (Sony, Warner Brothers, Nintendo) from bothering with the country at all.