YouTuber Sojang Denies Apologizing To IVE's Wonyoung

While IVE's Jang Wonyoung and Starship Entertainment have declared strong legal action against fake news, the court has decided to suspend the execution of the results of the lawsuit after the first trial.

According to the Star News report, the 18th Civil Affairs Department (C) of the Seoul Central District Court made a conditional suspension of execution on Jan. 29 against Jang Won-young's request for a compulsory suspension of execution in the first trial of a lawsuit for damages worth 100 million won, filed by the operator of Sojang (A), and delivered the original copy of the ruling to both sides.

However, the court attached conditional conditions to the decision to suspend the execution. The court attached a condition of 100 million won in deposit to A's application. If 100 million won in cash is deposited, it will suspend forced execution. If A fails to fulfill the deposit, the decision to suspend execution will be canceled.

Since then, according to lawyer Chung Kyung-seok, A has been confirmed to have paid 100 million won in deposit. Initially, Jang Won-young tried to enforce the 100 million won that was incurred after winning the lawsuit, but the enforcement was suspended due to A's deposit.

Eventually, the two sides are expected to continue their legal dispute through subsequent appeals. A, who had consistently responded in the first trial, seems to be planning to prove unfairness through the second trial without accepting the loss of the first trial.

At the same time, A's position on this suspicion seems to remain unchanged. As a result of the report, it was confirmed that A said in a written statement to the court that A had never written an apology that had been posted through a community in the past.

Starship Entertainment mentioned Jang Won-young's civil lawsuits against Sojang in its official position on the 17th and said, "The other party did not respond, so it was ruled automatically." Jang Won-young filed a lawsuit for damages worth 100 million won against A, the operator of "Sojang," in October 2023. The lawsuit was filed with the court in October 2023, and the court later requested a response against the defendant, but as A did not respond, and as time passed, the court considered it to have been served and ruled in Jang Won-young's favor without pleading.

However, in response, A submitted an appeal against the results of the sentence through their legal representative on the 17th. Since the complaint was received, the court has been silent on the legal response of the court and Jang Won-young, but the trial has moved to an appeal trial as A belatedly gave an answer that A cannot admit the charges by submitting an appeal, and A later applied to the court to suspend the execution of the lawsuit on the 23rd.

Usually, if the defendant files an appeal within two weeks of being served with the ruling, the ruling will not be finalized, but if there is a provisional execution sentence, the creditor can enforce it based on the execution statement, so it can be stopped for a while through an application for suspension of execution.

As a result, A revealed its willingness not to accept Jang Won-young and Starship's strong legal response and subsequent court rulings. However, as the decision to suspend the execution of 100 million won deposit was made, which is the same as the amount of the lawsuit Jang Won-young presented while filing a lawsuit, the court concluded that the outcome of the 100 million won lawsuit should be accepted by A.

Sojang has been criticized by many fans for referring to a number of K-pop artists for its YouTube channel, which indiscriminately circulated false facts and malicious rumors, and among them, Starship Entertainment, the agency, has taken out a sword of strong legal action in July 2023 toward Sojang, which has brought up severe fake news against Jang Won-young and others.

Sojang has been notorious for being a representative YouTube channel that has been criticized for indiscriminately spreading groundless facts and malicious rumors against popular entertainers. Sojang created a big stir by using entertainers as scapegoats to gain more views and spreading false information. In response, major pop music organizations urged strict punishment for creators of malicious content including Sojang in September 2023.

Starship Entertainment later announced that it received an order to provide information at the US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHTRN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA in May 2023 and that it had obtained meaningful information about the operator of "Sojang" from Google's headquarters that month. Through cooperation from Google, it strongly expressed its willingness to take legal action against the Sojang and first won the case.

Starship Entertainment said, "We have been conducting civil and criminal lawsuits and overseas lawsuits against Sojang since November 2022, which has continued to harass its artists," adding, "Sojang has been seriously defamatory by continuing to spread false information, which not only hindered our company's work, but also caused serious pain to artists and fans. We are doing our best to hold civil and criminal responsibility through the ongoing litigation."

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