Singapore cracks down on anime piracy
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Why not try it, you get 2 free credit points when you register on their website, enough to download 1 episode for free.Originally posted by Xephone_xenon:I haven use their VOD yet. But i heard its of high quality.
And as for the 7day thing. They are just acting on what the copyright holders say.
The japanese copyright holders have control almost whatever shit odex do.
So odex have their own limitations as well.
Again, its according to them. And its how much you want to believe la.
I registered and downloaded the first episode of Seto No Hanayome to see for myself.
The quality of the video and audio is pretty decent, for the file size(365mb wmv). Perfectly watchable on a 19inch LCd monitor.
My problem with the VOD is the 7 day limit, as well as the price ($2 per episode)
Not to mention Odex's reprehensible business ethics of course.
If it were possible for any company other than Odex to offer this service, minus the DRM, I'd be more receptive to it.
And yes I know Odex claims that the points spent towards VOD can be use to exhange for DVDs when they are available. Given their history however, I'm not very optimistic about them keeping their promise. -
http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_153986.html
The legal battle over Japanese animation movies called anime is turning out to be quite an animated tale itself.
Odex, a local anime distributor, had tracked down the Internet addresses of fans whom it said had downloaded its anime from the Internet illegally. In June, it got a court order to compel SingNet to divulge their identities. Odex then threatened them with legal action, so some settled for $3,000-5,000 per person.
Because these were mostly students, the youngest aged just nine, people were outraged. Riled netizens began to flame about Odex, especially after they unearthed an Internet posting by its director, Stephen Sing, that was laden with disparaging remarks about anime fans. Online death threats were even made against Mr Sing and his family, and he filed a police report.
In the meantime, Odex got a court order to compel StarHub to divulge its subscribers' identities as well. At this point, The Straits Times pointed out in a Review column that downloading anime could well come under an open-ended exception in the law that allows copying under circumstances other than education or news reporting.
The various exceptions under the Copyright Act serve to protect consumers from 'groundless threats' of legal action for copyright infringement. Though some lawyers felt that fans faced an uphill task in court, energised netizens decided to organise a defence fund to fight Odex.
Unflustered, Odex went after PacNet, the smallest ISP here. In a twist however district court judge Earnest Lau threw out its request.
Twist in the tale
FOR one thing, Odex is not the sole distributor of anime here. Other licensed distributors include Poh Kim and Blue Max, while some titles aren't even licensed at all.
In fact, Odex is only a sub-licensee of various Japanese distributors which are licensed by anime creators who actually hold the copyright. As a sub-licensee, Odex had no legal standing to act against alleged illegal downloaders. Only the copyright owner and its exclusive licensee have that right.
For another thing, Odex appears to be the exclusive distributor (for one year from April 9 this year) for just one anime movie called Mobile Suit Gundam Seed, having been authorised to act for Sunrise Inc 'who claims to be a copyright owner of (that) film', the judge said. Thus Odex had standing only to ask PacNet to divulge who owned the Internet addresses of those it said had downloaded Mobile Suit Gundam Seed illegally.
Should its request be granted? ISPs are required to protect subscriber identities under their service contract. Also, the Telecommunications Competition Code prohibits them from revealing subscriber information without a court order. Since this informational privacy is a public good, should it be overridden by Odex's very narrow private interests?
It is an established legal requirement that if you want the court to help you identify someone who may have wronged you, you must show you can clearly win the case even though you can't identify him yet. Then and only then will the court help you identify the wrongdoer.
In this respect, Odex fell far short. To track down the offending Internet addresses (sans real identities) which it then used to obtain its court orders against the ISPs, Odex said it hired an Internet detective agency called BayTSP. According to Mr Peter Go, Odex's managing director, BayTSP had helped several US clients win high profile copyright cases.
Mr Go claimed that BayTSP had licensed Odex to use its tracking solution, which he suggested was a computer software that he ran from Jan 29 to May 6 this year to track downloaders. After that, he supposedly sorted out the data and compiled the information.
Adjourning the first hearing to investigate this, the judge discovered that there was no such software to be licensed. Rather, if engaged, BayTSP would itself do the tracking, compile the statistics, and generate the reports. Mr Go submitted various news articles about BayTSP but neither reports nor receipts from it to prove he had engaged its services.
'Apart from a bare allegation,' the judge surmised, there was no proof Odex had engaged BayTSP at all. Thus its case against alleged downloaders of Mobile Suit Gundam Seed looked shaky. Accordingly, its request was thrown out. Odex had acted with too much 'expediency', the judge opined.
Another twist
WHILE still reeling from this setback, Odex's name was further sullied. A fan - purportedly a woman named Akizuki Hikoto - e-mailed several journalists various details culled from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority database that showed Mr Go had been a shareholder in a firm called Games Mart that sold video games and game consoles. Both Odex and Games Mart shared the same corporate address, had the same company secretary, Joni Wong, while Mr Sing had been a director in Games Mart as well.
In 1999, Games Mart was raided by the police for peddling pirated consoles. It went out of business in 2000. The following year, Mr Go and Mr Sing took Odex, incorporated in 1987, into anime distribution. Games Mart was struck off in 2004. Fans now wondered if the pot was calling the kettle black.
On Friday, Mr Go wrote to the Forum page of The Straits Times to say that neither he nor Mr Sing were implicated in the police investigation.
At this point, Odex said it would appeal. This week, the representatives of two anime studios and two Japanese distributors held a press conference to say that they had indeed authorised Odex to act on their behalf. However, the judge had noted at the time that these were 'distributors appointed by undisclosed copyright owners' while the two studios had authorised not Odex but the Anti Video Piracy Association (Singapore) which, the judge noted, was not a party to the suit.
Odex now has about a week left to appeal. Meanwhile, the case has piqued interest in some policy issues.
Four issues
FIRST, SingNet came under fire once it was known that its lawyers had not appeared in court to fight the Odex claim. StarHub's lawyers did, but failed to raise the substantive issues PacNet did. Users now wonder how far ISPs should go in defending the informational privacy of subscribers. Perhaps market forces will settle this.
Second, Odex's seeming ability to track down the Internet addresses of some downloaders despite no evidence it ever employed BayTSP suggests that there are now private, extra-judicial monitoring and enforcement systems out there which can detect and impact consumer behaviour. How will the authorities oversee such private mechanisms of surveillance?
Third, if intellectual property rights (IPRs) used to act merely as armour that protects IP from acts of theft, the Odex saga suggests that they may have become offensive weapons on the Internet that private owners can deploy to enforce certain standards of use and expression or speech.
Anime fans add English subtitles to help others understand the Japanese dialogue for example, but copyright owners can curtail such expression. Yet expressive freedoms are important in a democracy. So there is a need to examine carefully if expanding IPRs impacts on democracy.
Finally, shouldn't privacy be respected more robustly? Though the judge said 'the right to privacy is no defence' against such applications, he added that 'the courts also do not interfere with the privacy of persons without solid reasons'. Note that the individual whose privacy is to be set aside - the alleged infringer - is not represented in court at all. Instead, his rights are relegated to a process that will cost him time and money, a process that can only proceed after disclosure and harm have already occurred.
The law here recognises only a right for the protection of confidences, not privacy per se. However, that 'right of confidence' exists only where there is an obligation to keep information confidential that someone has consented to reveal to you. PacNet shows that privacy is invaded precisely when the victim does not consent to having private information about himself divulged to a third party. In fact, he may not even be aware that his information is being taken.
All this seems to make it look like the appropriate juncture for Parliament to consider creating privacy rights by statute. Officially.
[email protected] -
'We learnt to be more humble...Yes, we've made mistakes'
Stephen Sing and Peter Go - both self-proclaimed 'Otaku', slang for an obsessive anime fan - started out with a dream of importing the animated Japanese cartoons for fellow anime fans.
The dream has become something of a nightmare with the duo and their company Odex the target of an online hate campaign.
Mr Sing and Mr Go, both 35 and married with children, had met as classmates while studying business administration at the National University of Singapore. They quickly bonded over their passion for anime.
After graduating in 1996, they started work at MrGo's family business, a trading firm by the name of Odex. The company was then involved in a gamut of businesses, from ostrich farming to selling video games.
The duo started by importing and selling anime from Hong Kong and Taiwan licensees at the company's games retail arm called Games Mart.
Games Mart was later raided by the police for peddling counterfeit game accessories such as joysticks in 1999 and closed down in 2000.
Mr Sing said neither himself nor Mr Go were implicated or called up by the police to assist in their investigations in that case, since the games retail department was operated as a separate entity from the anime business.
In 1997, the two approached Sunrise, one of Japan's biggest and most successful anime studios, for the licence to the sci-fi-themed Gundam series, one of the world's most popular anime.
At first the answer was no but after a year of talks, Odex received the licence to make and sell Gundam here, said MrGo, Odex's managing director and the person in charge of purchasing.
But it was another 10months of figuring out what 'video mastering' and 'subtitling' were all about, said MrSing, before Odex launched its first product, Gundam 0083.
All 2,000 sets sold out.
Encouraged by the response, Odex approached other studios for licences to make and sell their anime here.
Over the next few years, the firm would grow from retailer to distributor, an 'unplanned but natural progression', said Mr Sing.
In 2001, it knocked on StarHub's door to ask if the pay-TV operator would be interested in screening anime here.
It said yes, provided the anime was dubbed in Mandarin.
Odex had no expertise in dubbing, but the firm decided that this was a business worth expanding into and invested in studios and audio recording equipment.
Today, it provides Mandarin-dubbed anime to StarHub, English-dubbed anime to MediaCorp's Arts Central and, starting last year, Malay-dubbed anime to Malaysian broadcasters.
Currently, 85per cent of Odex's annual revenue, which was 'over $1 million in 2005', comes from post-production, and the rest from selling anime to video retailers here, said Mr Sing.
It employs '20-odd' staff at its Anson Road office, many of whom are mad about anime too, said Mr Sing.
Yet, even as its stock with the anime studios grew, retail sales here were falling, something Mr Go blames on 'fansubs' or fan-subtitled anime.
Fans add English subtitles to the anime they record off Japanese television and post online for non-Japanese-speaking fans to enjoy.
In the early days of the Internet, fansub creators had an honour system to ensure fansubs would not hurt the anime industry.
When legitimate retail products were released, fansubs were taken down.
But the honour system fell apart when new peer-to-peer download systems such as BitTorrent became available.
Anime, once uploaded, stayed online indefinitely and 'freeloaders' today far outstrip the genuine anime fans who support the anime industry, said Mr Go.
'As anime lovers ourselves, we don't mind if you don't buy Odex products, but we really hate 'freeloaders' as they give nothing back to the industry,' said Mr Sing.
He claimed this was a common sentiment shared by many in the industry, especially the smaller anime studios that depend heavily on video sales because their anime is too niche to attract much in the way of merchandising revenue.
In March, Odex sold a revolutionary idea to its Japanese business partners: A copy-protected video-on-demand (VOD) service to sell anime online.
It took a while to get enough players on board - many were concerned that someone would crack the anime's copy protection, with the end result being better quality pirated anime online.
Many were also sceptical that a legitimate download service would work with 'free' pirated anime so widely available.
This is partly why Odex launched its controversial anti-piracy crackdown.
Mr Go said: 'We warned anime bloggers, we warned anime fan clubs in schools, that illegal downloads had to stop or we would take more drastic measures.'
But the warnings were largely ignored.
And so the infamous Odex compensation demand letters were sent. A laundry list of personal and corporate missteps resulted in the barrage of online attacks against the firm.
'We didn't expect such a reaction,' said Mr Sing.
In the the last few months, he said, 'we learnt to be more humble...and yes, we've made mistakes.'
To counter allegations of profiteering from the compensation amounts it had demanded from downloaders, Odex has said it would hire an external auditor to go through its accounts and donate any profit from the crackdown to charity.
But the crackdown will go on.
'We promised we would be committed to protecting the studios, to bring piracy rates under control if they did this video-on-demand with us,' he said.
Source: Sunday Times -
If everyone were to think this way, the Internet would not have borned. It's because of the sharing spirit that spurs everyone to work hard. If you want to improve sales, prove that you can be better than volunteers.
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The real problem here is the 7day limit actually.Originally posted by av98m:Why not try it, you get 2 free credit points when you register on their website, enough to download 1 episode for free.
I registered and downloaded the first episode of Seto No Hanayome to see for myself.
The quality of the video and audio is pretty decent, for the file size(365mb wmv). Perfectly watchable on a 19inch LCd monitor.
My problem with the VOD is the 7 day limit, as well as the price ($2 per episode)
Not to mention Odex's reprehensible business ethics of course.
If it were possible for any company other than Odex to offer this service, minus the DRM, I'd be more receptive to it.
And yes I know Odex claims that the points spent towards VOD can be use to exhange for DVDs when they are available. Given their history however, I'm not very optimistic about them keeping their promise.
$2 is considered cheap for an anime episode. -
You fail to realise that 80% of "anime fans" in sg are just bleach and naurto free loaders.Originally posted by ndmmxiaomayi:If everyone were to think this way, the Internet would not have borned. It's because of the sharing spirit that spurs everyone to work hard. If you want to improve sales, prove that you can be better than volunteers.
IMO Thats the main problem here.
Even if odex were to improve their vid and subs quality.
I am sure that the sales will go up. But i believe it will be just a modest number. -
Most of us are freeloaders. Did you ever donate to free software creators? The same situation here. The open-sourced and free software community are living off donations and do all these things in their free time. It's the spirit that matters.Originally posted by Xephone_xenon:You fail to realise that 80% of "anime fans" in sg are just bleach and naurto free loaders.
IMO Thats the main problem here.
Even if odex were to improve their vid and subs quality.
I am sure that the sales will go up. But i believe it will be just a modest number. -
Spirit of?Originally posted by ndmmxiaomayi:Most of us are freeloaders. Did you ever donate to free software creators? The same situation here. The open-sourced and free software community are living off donations and do all these things in their free time. It's the spirit that matters. -
the problem with ODEX now is that no one will buy their products...Originally posted by Xephone_xenon:You fail to realise that 80% of "anime fans" in sg are just bleach and naurto free loaders.
IMO Thats the main problem here.
Even if odex were to improve their vid and subs quality.
I am sure that the sales will go up. But i believe it will be just a modest number.
their reputation is in shambles....
sub/vid quality is no longer the issue....
their actions have raised so much disgust with them that no matter what they do, the community will not support their efforts... -
Why would I want to wait months for episodes 26, 27, and 28 to come out on dvd when i can get episode 26, the day right after it was aired, same nonwithstanding for the next few episodes?Originally posted by Xephone_xenon:You fail to realise that 80% of "anime fans" in sg are just bleach and naurto free loaders.
IMO Thats the main problem here.
Even if odex were to improve their vid and subs quality.
I am sure that the sales will go up. But i believe it will be just a modest number.
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And you are basing your figures on what?Originally posted by Xephone_xenon:You fail to realise that 80% of "anime fans" in sg are just bleach and naurto free loaders.
IMO Thats the main problem here.
Even if odex were to improve their vid and subs quality.
I am sure that the sales will go up. But i believe it will be just a modest number.
Plucking figures out of the air?
And seriously WTF have you got against Bleach and Naruto -
Wrong.Originally posted by Father Lim:the problem with ODEX now is that no one will buy their products...
their reputation is in shambles....
sub/vid quality is no longer the issue....
their actions have raised so much disgust with them that no matter what they do, the community will not support their efforts...
Apparently i see their VOD starting to appeal on people. -
Guess you don't know the community well.Originally posted by Xephone_xenon:Spirit of? -
Oh, thats just based on my own assumption.Originally posted by av98m:And you are basing your figures on what?
Plucking figures out of the air?
And seriously WTF have you got against Bleach and Naruto
And my own observations of the entire sg anime community.
To me it seems that like 80% of the "anime fans" i know just watch bleach+naruto.
And they have never ever bought any anime merchandise in their life. Not even mangas.
I have nth against bleach and naruto actually.
But i do have something against those bleach+naruto fanboys that just dl and freeload everyweek.
Its up to you to believe or not. -
stats please.Originally posted by Xephone_xenon:Oh, thats just based on my own assumption.
And my own observations of the entire sg anime community.
To me it seems that like 80% of the "anime fans" i know just watch bleach+naruto.
And they have never ever bought any anime merchandise in their life. Not even mangas.
I have nth against bleach and naruto actually.
But i do have something against those bleach+naruto fanboys that just dl and freeload everyweek.
Its up to you to believe or not.
some people get introed by the more popular animes like bleach and naruto then slowly start finding other nice animes to watch. -
Thats the point. Slow release.Originally posted by ditzy:Why would I want to wait months for episodes 26, 27, and 28 to come out on dvd when i can get episode 26, the day right after it was aired, same nonwithstanding for the next few episodes?
And slow release is not something that odex can control. -
And some people might be watching starting from naruto episode 1 and currently they still are watching naruto episode 6000. Refusing to buy any form of anime merchandise.Originally posted by stellazio:stats please.
some people get introed by the more popular animes like bleach and naruto then slowly start finding other nice animes to watch. -
well me i have given up Naruto ..as for Bleach....i have not watch..so am i part of the grp?Originally posted by stellazio:stats please.
some people get introed by the more popular animes like bleach and naruto then slowly start finding other nice animes to watch. 
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there're free loaders everywhere in this world!Originally posted by Xephone_xenon:And some people might be watching starting from naruto episode 1 and currently they still are watching naruto episode 6000. Refusing to buy any form of anime merchandise.
lets just say, a freeloader he might be, but he intros the anime to his friend, who gets hooked on anime, who then buys merchandises, osts etc. -
Boycotted. Forever.Originally posted by Father Lim:the problem with ODEX now is that no one will buy their products...
their reputation is in shambles....
sub/vid quality is no longer the issue....
their actions have raised so much disgust with them that no matter what they do, the community will not support their efforts... -
The problem is, the software community are doing it willingly.Originally posted by ndmmxiaomayi:Most of us are freeloaders. Did you ever donate to free software creators? The same situation here. The open-sourced and free software community are living off donations and do all these things in their free time. It's the spirit that matters.
They create the software, the software is theirs. And the willingly let people dl their software.
Japanese animation studios spend months on making animes.
They air it on japanese tv.
Fansubbers take the animes that the studios make.
And let people dl them.
In this way, the fansubbers only work is to sub them.
And the subbing process would only take hours.
But for the japanese studios case, for every single anime episode they make, they need 3months.
The japanese companies lose out. And they are unwilling to let their anime episodes to be downloaded.
Its not the same la. -
OT abit...Originally posted by Xephone_xenon:The problem is, the software community are doing it willingly.
They create the software, the software is theirs. And the willingly let people dl their software.
Japanese animation studios spend months on making animes.
They air it on japanese tv.
Fansubbers take the animes that the studios make.
And let people dl them.
In this way, the fansubbers only work is to sub them.
And the subbing process would only take hours.
But for the japanese studios case, for every single anime episode they make, they need 3months.
The japanese companies lose out. And they are unwilling to let their anime episodes to be downloaded.
Its not the same la.
if thats the case i feel sad for the PSP community also as MOST PSP COMMUITY are FREELOADERS in SG...... -
Does not seem to be happen in the sg's anime community.Originally posted by stellazio:there're free loaders everywhere in this world!
lets just say, a freeloader he might be, but he intros the anime to his friend, who gets hooked on anime, who then buys merchandises, osts etc.
If yes, only the minority.
In this saga.
I do agree that odex could have just sent out warning letters first and only catch the persistents one that continue to dl dispite the warning.
And stephen comment saying that anime dlers wont budge even if they send out the letter was absolutely retarded and shallow.
At the same time, the anime community is at fault at well.
There ARE alot of freeloaders and refuse to pay for what the dl. -
You guys read the latest update on wiki?
Apparently, Odex got their hands on Haruhi Suzumiya... talk about late, the popularity was peak 12 mths ago... -
PSP community at least support sony by buying PSP console.Originally posted by duotiga83:OT abit...
if thats the case i feel sad for the PSP community also as MOST PSP COMMUITY are FREELOADERS in SG......