Netflix sued over Squid Game popularity

You really can be too popular for your own good. Netflix is being sued in South Korea, in part over the enormous success of Squid Game.

Squid Game is creating obsessives around the world, storming its way to the top of Netflix’s most watched series ever.

But not everyone is happy about it inevitably knocking Bridgerton off that number one perch.

A South Korean internet service provider, SK Broadband, is suing Netflix over the increased traffic thanks to Netflix’s popularity in the country, according to Reuters.

The American streaming service has significantly increased its presence in South Korea thanks to its deep-pocketed investment in local TV and film productions, including the immensely popular Squid Game, a violent social satire that uses the narrative framework of a murderous competition to highlight the country’s growing wealth inequality gap.

Squid Game involves a murderous competition for a $AU52 million prize.

SK Broadband said in its claims that Netflix is South Korea’s second-largest traffic generator, after YouTube, and other streamers such as Amazon, Facebook and Apple are paying network usage fees.

According to SK Broadband, Netflix’s data through its network has exploded 24-fold from May 2018 to September 2021, and it’s now processing 1.2 trillion bits of data per second. Squid Game was released on September 17.

SK Broadband’s lawsuit wants Netflix to retroactively pay for network access, dating back to 2018, which for 2020 was estimated to be 27.2 billion won ($AU31 million).

Reuters reported that Netflix had previously brought its own lawsuit on its obligation to pay SK Broadband network fees and had argued its obligation is to create the content and make it accessible.

However, the Seoul Central District Court ruled against Netflix, which has appealed with another court date set for December.

Netflix said it had invested 770 billion won ($AU896 million) in South Korea’s TV and film production industry, amounting to 16,000 jobs.

In February, Netflix committed to this year spending $US500 million in South Korea to capitalise on what was one of its fastest-growing markets, according to Bloomberg. At the time, Netflix had already created 80 Korean TV shows and movies since 2016.

Unusually for Netflix, which does not break out country-specific subscriber numbers except for the US, the streamer said at the time it had 3.8 million accounts in South Korea.

Squid Game is set to become Netflix’s most popular series.

Netflix’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos said in February, “Over the last two years, we’ve seen the world falling in love with the incredible Korean content. Made in Korea and watched by the world on Netflix.”

Squid Game has rocketed to the number one spot on Netflix in more than 90 countries, including in Australia. Netflix executive Minyoung Kim, who oversees APAC, told Wall Street Journal that Squid Game is still trending up.

“We’ve never seen anything grow as fast and aggressive as Squid Game.”

The series is centred on a hyper-violent competition which pits players against one another for the ultimate prize, 45 billion won ($AU52.4 million), while the losers are killed.

The vicious stakes of the game highlights South Korea’s class struggle and has been compared to Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning film Parasite in its unapologetic evisceration of the increasing wealth gap between South Korea’s haves and have-nots.

Squid Game’s characters are recruited into the game because of their desperate circumstances.

The series’ creator Hwang Dong-hyuk conceived the story 10 years ago when he was living with his mother and grandmother, and at one point had to sell his laptop for cash, according to WSJ.

Squid Game is the number one title on Netflix in more than 90 countries.

Netflix has had an eye on expanding its reach in Asia-Pacific, where its four largest territories at the start of the year were South Korea, Australia, Japan and India.

It’s invested heavily in non-English programs for those markets, including $US400 million in India over 2019 and 2020.

Comparatively, Netflix has lagged in commissioning Australian titles, in part because there are no language barriers between Australian subscribers and Netflix’s output from the US and the UK.

Upcoming Australian Netflix titles include the Heartbreak High revival, the controversial Byron Baes reality series and Queensland-set drama Irreverent, a co-production with NBC Universal.

Originally published as Netflix sued over Squid Game popularity