Leaves viewers in between a rock and a 'Quiet Place'.
Netflix during an appellate hearing with law makers over a court ruling that forces Netflix to pay Korea's SK Broadband, an internet provider, restitution for surcharges in internet traffic threatened to cancel its' investment and the localization of it's platform. Thomas Bolmer appealed to law makers that Netflix should not have to pay as their responsibility ends with creating content and making it available for consumption.
Sk Broadcast argued that all international content platforms pay internet server maintenance costs and that Netflix and Google are the only ones that do not. The broadcast giants also argued that SK Broadcast is providing a service for cost to Netflix for streaming its' contents and are have no responsibility to continue to provide the service if restitution isn't paid.
Koreans are split over this news, as Netflix has provided Korea's film and drama industry with a much larger platform and easier to reach audience, Netflix has been the one to largely profit off the success' of Korean shows. Some Koreans are calling on lawmakers to call the platform's bluff and work with competitors like Amazon who are paying server costs or eager upstart Hulu.
Recent success of 'Squid Game', 'Kingdom', and 'Hellbound', definitely makes Korea's demands hold weight as Netflix is thought to to have made hundreds of millions of the show's success. However as Netflix claims, it has created over 17 thousand jobs in Korea and have helped bring the Kdrama wave to the shores of the west, this is a delicate situation where both parties will have to tread lightly.
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