News
Korean Firm's Fine for Copying Advent Children Raised
posted on by Egan Loo
The Square Enix company has announced on Wednesday that the Seoul High Court has rejected the appeal by the Korean music video producers who infringed on the computer-animated Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children film — and actually increased the defendants' fine to 400 million Korean won (about US$326,000) last month. Square Enix released Advent Children, which is the computer-animated sequel to its Final Fantasy VII role-playing game, in Japan in September 2005 and then released the film in South Korea in June 2006. In March 2007, Fantom Entertainment released a music video for the “Temptation Sonata” song by the Korean singer Ivy. Square Enix filed for an injunction the following month for the music video's alleged copyright infringement of Advent Children.
The lower Seoul Central District Court ruled against Fantom on December 7, 2007 and found that "80%" of the music video was based on the "storyline, setting, characters, their styles of dress, and their demeanors" on Advent Children and the original Final Fantasy VII game. At the time, the court fined Fantom 10 million won (US$10,900) and issued separate fines of 6 million won (US$6,500) each to Lee Han-woo, the director of the company, and Hung Jeong-ho, the director of the music video. The defendants' fines were raised to 300 million won (US$244,000) when the original case ended in March 2008. After the defendants appealed the case to the Seoul High Court, the court rejected the appeal and raised the fine further to 400 million won on July 3.
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