The South Korean original drama “Squid Game” became popular and became the most successful non-English drama series on Netflix, an audio-visual streaming platform. However, because of the “Squid Game” craze that caused network traffic overload, South Korean broadband provider SK Broadband (SKB) announced today that it has filed a lawsuit against Netflix for compensation for the sudden surge in network traffic and maintenance costs.
SKB and Netflix have been fighting over network traffic and maintenance costs for many years. The Seoul court only ruled in June this year that Netflix’s claim that “the debt does not exist” lost the lawsuit and believed that it should be “reasonably” to provide some compensation to the network provider as the use of the network. At the cost, some South Korean conference members also expressed their support, saying that platform providers should pay for the surge in traffic.
Netflix currently does not comment on the lawsuit filed by SKB. The popularity of “Squid Game” on the Netflix platform and a number of audio-visual works highlights its data traffic status in South Korea second only to YouTube. SKB said that other platform providers such as Amazon, Apple, and Facebook paid for network occupation, but only Netflix and YouTube never paid.
SKB pointed out that affected by “Squid Game” and other popular audiovisual works, the data traffic processed per second by Netflix last month has increased by 24 times compared with May 2018. According to a June court document, SKB estimates that Netflix will need to pay about 27.2 billion won (about 179 million Hong Kong dollars) for network services in 2020. Netflix recently published a report with an accounting firm, claiming that its platform has brought about 5.6 trillion won (about 36.8 billion Hong Kong dollars) in revenue to South Korea’s cross-industry economy and created 1,600 jobs. The report also pointed out that Netflix is actively investing South Korean film and television production, with 3.8 million subscribers in the local area. However, Netflix still has no intention of paying for the traffic, and has appealed the court’s decision, and the trial process will begin at the end of the year.