According to Herald Corp reported on July 3, actor Park Seo Joon has filed a lawsuit against Mr. A, the owner of a crab restaurant with live room, who provided business space for the set of tvN's popular drama "How's the Secretary of the Golden Temple?".
Park Seo Joon's side affirmed that Mr. A used the scene in the film to promote the restaurant without the actor's consent, thereby violating Park Seo Joon's image copyright.
This controversial event started in July 2018. In the movie "What's wrong with Secretary Kim?", the character Lee Young Joon (Park Seo Joon) ate crab and seasoned it to please the family of the female lead Kim Mi So (Park Min Young).
About a year later, Mr. A created banners using a scene from the film with the slogan "The restaurant where Park Seo Joon ate all the crabs", "A crabs that even Park Seo Joon loved".
Mr. A displayed these banners inside and outside the restaurant from August 2019 to September 2024. Mr. A also used Park Seo Joon's image to run search ads on Naver for about 6 years.
After the discovery, Park Seo Joon filed a lawsuit for damages, claiming that Mr. A violated the right to use his image. The actor's legal team is said to have demanded initial damages of 6 billion won for 6 years of violations.
Mr. A's side said that "the common business practice for TV series sponsors is to use such scenes for advertising purposes," but in the end the court ruled in favor of Park Seo Joon.
However, the actual compensation for damages that the restaurant owner must pay in the court's ruling is 5 million won.
After this news, many viewers expressed their disappointment with Park Seo Joon, saying that the actor was too "young" to sue a small business owner for compensation of a huge amount of 6 billion won.
However, on the same day, Park Seo Joon's management company - Awesome ENT - spoke up to clarify the information.
The company said that it had repeatedly asked Mr. A to remove the advertisements since 2019. Mr. A initially removed them for a while, but then continued to use images of Park Seo Joon, completely ignoring the request.
In addition, according to the company, the estimated damage from the illegal use of Park Seo Joon's image for advertising purposes is about 600 million. However, given the restaurant's circumstances, the actor only demanded 60 million won in compensation, not 6 billion won as reported.
The company also warned of malicious mocking comments targeting Park Seo Joon regarding the court's legal verdict.
Awesome ENT emphasized that they will not be lenient with any acts that violate the actor's image and personal rights.
