Nowcom
Encyclopedia
Nowcom founded in 1994, is a Korean IT Company.
The first service of Nowcom in South Korea was Nownuri which is VT-based online BBS started in 1994 and currently they operates Afreeca
, TalesRunner
, O2Jam
and ClubBox as well as Nownuri.
Nowcom was merged by Wins Technet, a listed IT company, at January 2008 and listed on KOSDAQ
with its original name though and worked together for 3 years, but finally they have been separated again to two companies as they were. Nowcom is still listed on KOSDAQ.
.
For this situation, "Nowcom has taken a major role in the internet business in South Korea and scaled down their suspicious services enough to protect the copyright against their profit", Korean Internet Contents Unity, as known as KICU, said, "We are sorry very much that the judiciary was too strict for this unlike usual cases". The CEO bonded out in a month after the arrest.
The first service of Nowcom in South Korea was Nownuri which is VT-based online BBS started in 1994 and currently they operates Afreeca
Afreeca
Afreeca is a video streaming service based on P2P technology, owned and operated by Nowcom in South Korea.The site mainly retransmits TV channels, but also allows users to upload their own videos and shows. The head of Afreeca's parent company Nowcom, Mun Yong-sik, was arrested in 2008 for...
, TalesRunner
TalesRunner
Tales Runner is a Massively multiplayer online game created by the South Korean company Rhaon Entertainment and published by Nowcom. It combines the genres of social, fantasy and racing games; players compete by running, jumping, dashing, skiing and climbing across different magical fairy tale...
, O2Jam
O2Jam
O2Jam is an online casual rhythm video game developed in South Korea by O2Media. At present there are agencies in many countries and regions.-Gameplay:...
and ClubBox as well as Nownuri.
Nowcom was merged by Wins Technet, a listed IT company, at January 2008 and listed on KOSDAQ
KOSDAQ
KOSDAQ is a trading board of Korea Exchange in South Korea established in 1996. Initially set up by Korea Financial Investment Association as an independent stock market from the Korean Stock Exchange, it was benchmarked from the American counterpart, NASDAQ.KOSDAQ is an electronic stock market,...
with its original name though and worked together for 3 years, but finally they have been separated again to two companies as they were. Nowcom is still listed on KOSDAQ.
Services
- AfreecaAfreecaAfreeca is a video streaming service based on P2P technology, owned and operated by Nowcom in South Korea.The site mainly retransmits TV channels, but also allows users to upload their own videos and shows. The head of Afreeca's parent company Nowcom, Mun Yong-sik, was arrested in 2008 for...
: Online TV with P2P video streaming service. Users can upload their own videos as well as live video streams. - TalesRunnerTalesRunnerTales Runner is a Massively multiplayer online game created by the South Korean company Rhaon Entertainment and published by Nowcom. It combines the genres of social, fantasy and racing games; players compete by running, jumping, dashing, skiing and climbing across different magical fairy tale...
: Racing video game - O2JamO2JamO2Jam is an online casual rhythm video game developed in South Korea by O2Media. At present there are agencies in many countries and regions.-Gameplay:...
: Music video gameMusic video gameA music video game, also commonly known as a music game, is a video game where the gameplay is meaningfully and often almost entirely oriented around the player's interactions with a musical score or individual songs... - ClubBox: Web storage service for any internet community
- Nownuri: Classic VT BBS
- NOWCDN: CDN service for massive file distribution such as game clients
Suspicion of illegal file distribution and the CEO under arrest
The ex-CEO, Yong-sik Moon, was arrested in 2008 for illegally distributing pirated films. The prosecution announced that Nowcom allowed users implicitly to distribute duplicated films and shared profits with major file uploaders in Clubbox. However Nowcom denied the suspicion announcing that they did nothing against the copyright law but everything to get rid of illegal uploads with filtering and monitoring as much as possible. More than that, Nowcom suspected Korean government that they arrested Moon intentionally with political purposes to make weak their service Afreeca which was lively broadcasting the protest held by people who were negative to US beef imports in South KoreaUS beef imports in South Korea
The 2008 US beef protest in South Korea was an importation issue in South Korea – United States relations after the closure of the South Korean market to US beef imports upon the discovery of a US case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in 2003...
.
For this situation, "Nowcom has taken a major role in the internet business in South Korea and scaled down their suspicious services enough to protect the copyright against their profit", Korean Internet Contents Unity, as known as KICU, said, "We are sorry very much that the judiciary was too strict for this unlike usual cases". The CEO bonded out in a month after the arrest.