Gwangju Attorney | Charge of Producing and Distributing Child Sexual Exploitation Material, Suspension of Indictment

The client had steadily drawn illustrations and uploaded them online for about five years but had not gained much popularity.

In the end, in order to gain wider word of mouth and fame, the client decided to draw adult content.

The client produced a total of 50 pieces of adult content, some of which included drawings reminiscent of children and youth.

One day, an unidentified person proposed a collaboration to the client and received the client's drawings.

Told that the drawings could become known to more people, the client lent out a social media account.

The unidentified person then uploaded material to the client's social media, and the client came to face a charge of distributing child and youth sexual exploitation material and was eventually accused before the investigative authorities.

The client in this case came to Daeryun Law Firm out of trust in its system for accompanying clients to police questioning and assigning a dedicated attorney to each case.

Daeryun Law Firm assigns an attorney suited to each type of case, accompanies clients to police questioning to prevent unfavorable statements, and responds systematically through the subsequent procedures.

In this way, the firm manages clients' legal risks in advance and establishes contingency strategies to present prompt responses.

The Gwangju attorney explained that it was necessary to emphasize that the client's creative work was a purely fictional expressive work.

However, a review of the court's rulings showed that fictional expressive works had been recognized as potentially subject to the Act on the Protection of Children and Youth against Sexual Abuse, so the court's judgment could vary depending on the specific context.

In the end, it was necessary to raise a legal argument over whether the Act on the Protection of Children and Youth against Sexual Abuse applied, on the ground that the client had not distributed the material directly.

The illustrations the client drew could be somewhat sexually provocative, but the client had not produced any character based on an actual child or youth.

In particular, the attorney emphasized that the characters' features and storylines did not establish them as children or youth, and that, as purely fictional creative works, they could be clearly distinguished as fictional cartoon characters rather than real persons even from the perspective of an average member of society.

The client, on a momentary impulse, lent the social media account ID after the unidentified person proposed a collaboration, and as a result numerous creative works were uploaded, but these were not posted by the client directly.

The client also explained that the client had not been able to check which drawings were being posted and had not generated any actual profit merely from the uploads to social media.

The client 🔗violated the Act on the Protection of Children and Youth against Sexual Abuse but was a first-time offender with no prior record of the same kind.

The attorney argued that if a custodial sentence were imposed over this matter, an employment restriction order could be issued against the company where the client served as head, posing a serious threat to the livelihoods of the employees and the client.