Park Seo-Joon Sues Restaurant For Unauthorized Use Of His Drama Image, Sparks Online Backlash(Photo Credit –Instagram)
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Park Seo-Joon has finally taken legal action against the restaurant that used his images from his K-drama without his consent. His agency has clarified the lawsuit. Read on.
Park Seo-Joon is one of the most successful and globally popular South Korean actors who has made his name in the industry with projects like Itaewon Class, What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim, Gyeonseong Creature, and more. Now, recently, the actor’s name has made it to the headlines not because of his acting stint but because of a lawsuit. The actor has filed a lawsuit against the owner of a marinated crab restaurant in South Korea.
The owner had given his restaurant space to shoot a few sequences of Park’s popular K-drama, What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim. After that, the owner used images of the actor from that scene to promote his business, but without taking any consent. Now, the actor has taken action against it. Scroll ahead to find out more about this legal drama.
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Why Park Seo-Joon Filed The Lawsuit?
According to the Korean media outlet, Herald Cop, Park Seo-Joon claimed that the owner of the restaurant, named Mr. A, used the scene cutouts to promote his business without the actor’s consent, which affects his portrait rights. This dates back to 2019, as he has been using banners and posters inside and outside of his restaurant since then, and despite getting warnings, the owner never stopped using the imagery.
The scene in question is from What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim, where Seo-Joon’s character was seen eating raw marinated crab at a restaurant to win over Park Min-Young’s character’s family. Now, the owner utilized that to create banners with captions like “The restaurant where Park Seo-Joon devoured crabs” and “The crab dish even Park Seo-Joon fell in love with.”
wkwk sebagai penikmat drakor aku awalnya ngebayangin lelaki businessman tampan dan kaya raya seperti park seo joon di what’s wrong with secretary kim 🙂 pic.twitter.com/seeAT95lyX
These were displayed from 2019 to 2024. Upon discovering this, the actor has now filed a lawsuit against him for damaging his portrait rights. His legal team claimed 6 billion KRW (approx $4.4 million), as stated in Koreaboo. This has been calculated, including 1 billion KRW per year, along with the actor’s endorsement charges multiplied by six years of violation.
Even though Mr. A cited in defense that it’s common practice for K-drama sponsors to use the scenes for promotional purposes, the court has made its decision, and it’s in the actor’s favor. As per reports, the court has only awarded 5 billion KRW, and the owner has taken down all of the banners. However, as soon as the news went viral, netizens started to slam the actor for being petty over suing such a small business owner. According to TheQoo, a Korean social media platform, one such netizen wrote, “That 6 billion claim is seriously petty.” Another one stated, “Can you even make 6 billion won selling raw crabs? What kind of bogus formula yields 6 billion for Park Seo-Joon’s promo? What gives celebs the right… Suing is way too easy for them.” Others shared their opinion on X (previously known as Twitter).
This is kinda petty if its true. And im honestly baffled. I saw tons of restaurants who uses footage from tv shows where celebrities visited their restaurants as a promo
So why would Park Seo Joon sue one of these restaurants? If he wasnt comfortable, couldnt he reach out & ask? pic.twitter.com/uKGp5EXTW9
— 🥠Lessa🐺🍑Gnab Bum appreciator (@AdDattebayo) July 3, 2025
Now, Park Seo-Joon’s agency, awesome.ent, has clarified the situation through an official statement that read (via Soompi), “We requested [the promotional materials] to be taken down several times since 2019, and they would delete the portal site search advertisements and put away the banner, but they would just put them back up and not respond to the requests to stop. These malicious acts continued, which is why the lawsuit began.” They continued, “Although the estimated damage amounts to 6 billion won considering the advertising model fee, we took into consideration the size of the defendant’s business and all the circumstances, and the actual amount claimed in the lawsuit was 60 million won (approximately $44,200).”
They further added, “We have confirmed that secondary harm through malicious ridicule and defamation continue even after a rightful court ruling. We will respond without leniency or settlement to any acts that infringe on our artist’s publicity and personal rights.”
Well, what are your thoughts about this?
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