Forum - View topicNEWS: Singapore Company Cracks Down on Anime Downloads
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| tueac Posts: 33 |
|
||
They have done it like a year ago, now its only found in certain places they know but dun wanna catch, so not to push people too hard... Even this exercise like a mockup. They threaten to bring you to court, but all letter receivers got a peaceful resolution. Compared to what the RIAA(in the US music industry) is doing... anyway i believe they are just being a experiment piece, as the world move into a stage where the official release is as fast as fansub. |
|||
|
|||
| kokoroAngel Posts: 11 |
|
||
| Even someone like me, who has never studied Japanese formally, could tell that there were some serious discrepancies with their translation. And Twelve Kingdoms is such a lovely anime... | |||
|
|||
| Moogle-X Posts: 23 |
|
||
| I am greatly saddened by the replies I have seen to this article. Everyone seems to think that fansubs are their right as fans and that any company who blames their troubles on them is doing a disservice to their own customers. If quality is a concern, there are many other ways to encourage improvements in quality of materials released, but never is it your right to steal for free what you "wouldn't buy anyway." Companies here in the United States have largely ignored the community and at least passively accepted their code of conduct and intent as advertisement for programs yet unreleased. The reality is that companies are beginning to suffer as a result of this and are discontinuing titles even before finishing them or ignoring less mainstream titles at all, figuring people who have already seen it wouldn't buy it by that same logic. If you watch an episode or two of a fansub is one thing: you are checking the series to see if you are interested in what it is and what it is about. However, most simply go on ahead and download 26 and 52+ episode shows and when finished, never purchase the DVDs or related media because they have "already seen it". As a former part of the industry, I tell you that this is on the fringe of truly becoming an epidemic on a global scale and as more countries, even those with previously ignorant copyright control, begin to take a stand for this widespread phenomena. I have seen this happen to several companies and before long, look forward to fewer new shows or shortcutting animation and quality issues (you know these shows) and having to pay $30 for 1 or 2 episodes again (if you could find any anime!) as we had to when anime fandom first became prevelant in the U.S.
Many will no doubt disagree with my opinions, but please at least consider your actions before you begin to ignore companies in favor of intellectual theft. Thanks |
|||
|
|||
Shiroi Hane Subscriber Posts: 1747 Location: Wales |
|
||
| I emailed this into the newsroom days ago. Assumed ANN had decided not to cover it or something when it didn't go up. | |||
|
|||
| DmonHiro Posts: 395 |
|
||
| The reason most of us think this is bullshit is not so much that we all want free anime. But ODEX is complaning that fansubs are bringing their sales down....when thier products are worse that the pirated Hong Hong anime disks of the early '90 (for those of you who never got thier hands on one (good for you) they make the early Anime Junkies look like professional translators, and had worse video quality then VHS). Sure, it's true, fansubs drop the sales of anime companies. But let's be real here, all of them consider that everyone who downloaded, say Rurouni Kenshin, would have bought thier products were it not for the free fansub. Thats bullshit! At leat 50% of anime downloaders, were all fansubs to dissaper, still would NOT buy anime DVD's. To consider every anime episode downloaded a direct loss of sale is beyond arrogant and way unrealistic. So, if Odex was offering HQ producst I would not be writing my opinon right now, but since the alternative to fansubs is to PAY FOR LOWER QUALITY PRODUCST, there is no way in hell i'm going to side with ODEX. If it was, say ADV or Funimation complaning, I would be on their side since they offer quality anime. One more thing. From what I understand, they are sending letters to ALL anime downloaders. If they have the licence for Pokemon(example) and I'm only downloading Digimon(example), why the hell are they sending me a letter? So, unless a company offers HQ anime, I cound care less if they go bankrupt. (I could care less if they stoped dubbing anime too, if fact, I would celebrate that). And FYI, I watched Utawarerumono on fansubs, donwloaded the whole show in 9 hours month ago. One week ago, I lunged in my Video Store and bought the first two volumes. I haven't watched them, since I alredy saw the series, but man.....do they look good in my bookshelf. And I am sure many other fans did the same thing....since there were only two copys of the second volume left. | |||
|
|||
| tueac Posts: 33 |
|
||
| earlier works of Odex? I have one the 08th MS team, it is one of the best VCDs i have ever bought. How are they lousy?
And it seems that many are confused on what titles odex have released before and/or are confusing bootlegs to be odex's production and etc. becos Odex never released Kenshin before... And ALL anime downloaders? what are you talking about? they are only sending letters to people who has downloaded titles from this list, http://www.avpas.com.sg/ Its a very long list but, atleast lucky star is not in there yet. right? And yes bleach is not their licence but they are doing it becos TV Tokyo Request them to do so. |
|||
|
|||
| Rubyfulcrum Posts: 9 |
|
||
I'm a little surprised, too. I mean, downloading copyrighted material without the consent of the copyright owner is illegal, and don't think people should do it (and distributers should be prosecuted). But I rarely read anything about the effect of bootlegs on the industry. I mean, e-Bay seems to be flooded with the stuff, yet I have not heard of anyone trying to crack down on the sellers. E-Bay seems very willing to take down auctions of illegal products... and sometimes just questionable products. |
|||
|
|||
| DmonHiro Posts: 395 |
|
||
| The best VCD of all time...............oh yes....the best anime encoded in mpeg-1, in 352x288 and 28 KB/s audio.....that's like saying...look I've got the best Trabant automobile (a car from Hungary), it way be the best in it's class.....but it's still garbage. So saying that they make the best VCD's is like saying they make the best garbage. | |||
|
|||
ikillchickenSubscriber Posts: 2517 Location: Vancouver - Go Canucks Go! |
|
||
| Its stupid. Worry about Bootlegs.
- They actually have a chance of stopping or at least decreasing them. - Most people who buys a bottleg is someone who was willing to pay so theyve lost a sale. This isnt always the case with downloaders. at Moogle-X: I have no intention of going into the whole moral debate on fansubs. Since many people don't have a problem with it though you gotta offer some sort of incentive other than that. Here, that incentive is to support the industry. However, when you get into a scenario in which the country would be just as well off, even better off if the industry was nonexistant that incentive dissapears. Then when the company tries to eliminate bottlegs instead of improving the quality of their own products to compete, the fans take it as a slap in the face. |
|||
|
|||
| hotsei™ Posts: 1 |
|
||
| as long as we otakus are here, they can't stop us! LOL | |||
|
|||
winsonkoh Posts: 3 Location: Singapore... |
|
||
Thats if you get caught, all the money goes to them.  |
|||
|
|||
mufurc Posts: 472 |
|
||
Germany, actually. East Germany to be exact. >Moogle-X Er, have you really read the replies you're complaining about? The problem here is not fansubs, it's that the quality of products the company puts out is atrocious to the point that even fansubs are better, and the company doesn't seem intent on changing this. There's a somewhat similar situation in my country: there are decent and even some really good quality anime releases on DVD, but the company that releases the series that air on TV does such an abysmal job at it (at least in the case of the series I've seen) that I refuse to pay money for them. The picture and audio quality is bad (sometimes they cram 10+ episodes on one DVD), there are no extras. The dubs are generally mediocre at best, and in some cases the subs are actually fansubs (translated from English, of course) that they grabbed from the 'net, full of mistranslations, grammatical and stylistic mistakes, and they're generally painful to look at. And as for the dub translations... they're also translated from English by people who apparently don't know the difference between "Are you seeing Julia behind my back" and "Do you see Julia behind my back" (actual example). And it's not because the company is new (it's not, by the way) - no, they simply don't give a flying damn about quality, and think that fans will eat up anything they give them. (Hell, in case of Cowboy Bebop they printed the wrong title on the DVD covers!) I'm all about supporting the local industry, but not if it has such an attitude. If they want my money then they'd better offer something that's worth it. |
|||
|
|||
| ashrigo Posts: 2 |
|
||
| Not to flog a dead horse, but this issue is still alive. Pls bear with me.
Let's see now. During a trip yesterday to the stores locally, I've uncovered three anime distros, Odex, Bluemax and one other i forget. Marked on their cds, are the urls of the companies concerned. http://www.odex.com.sg/ http://www.bluemax.com.sg/ The only thing on Odex.com.sg (if you visited) is a "clarification article". The site does not have any info regarding the company, its products etc etc. Zip, nada, zero! On bluemax's site (which distributes Naruto, among others), they actually have the prices/titles sold by them, plus pics, company info, plus... well, you get the idea. In the particular "clarification article" dated 20 Aug 2007, Odex claims that it "was appointed to conduct the present enforcement drive because it is the largest distributor of anime in the region", and was "authorised by the Anti-Video Piracy Association (Singapore) (AVPAS), a non-profit organisation whose members consist primarily of Japanese companies involved in the anime industry, including major companies such as Sunrise Inc., TV Tokyo Medianet Co., Ltd, Gonzo Digimation Holding K.K., Kadokawa Pictures, Inc. and Aniplex Inc., to take all steps necessary to protect and enforce the copyrights subsisting in more than 400 anime titles." - This is rather laughable. Authorised? AVPAS was registered (you can check on www.acra.gov.sg) in April 2007 to undertake enforcement action between MARCH - MAY 2007? "The publicity generated from the enforcement campaign has caused some anime fans to react adversely and irrationally, some going to the extent of publishing profanity-laden postings on the internet, and issuing death threats against an Odex director." - Of course there are immature kiddies around, but what about valid arguments posted by OTHER fans discussing the copyright issue? They only paint one picture. Btw, the company responsible for the Singapore action can be found at www.baytsp.com Question is, I don't see Bluemax complaining anywhere that Naruto (its not on the AVPAS list either) downloads are hurting their business. The fact of the matter is that outside of the anime community, the local public does not understand its underlying sub-culture, and cannot relate to it in a reasonable manner. |
|||
|
|||
| weils Posts: 42 |
|
||
Well, the third ISP to get targeted by Odex goes on its court hearing this Thursday on whether to release the IPs of their users. And yes, ashrigo you are right. In Singaporean forums here people are digging up more info on Odex and AVPAS, and it is strongly suspected that both are the same organisation. The reason is because AVPAS has only Odex and none of other media distributors as member, and they both share the same office address. In the clarification article, Odex claims that "many other anime fans" have voluntarily admitted to downloading illegally to them when they haven't received their suing letters. It also says that if anyone who admits in this way will be free of legal action, but still have to pay settlement. In the recent revealing of someone's letter of undertaking to Odex, one of the clauses states that, though not mentioned, implies it could send this letter of undertaking to the government or other 3rd parties that will take their own legal action against you, even when you have paid compensation. Signing this agreement amounts to giving up one's privacy and self-defence if it comes to that. Admitting to the act voluntarily is the same as waiting for the letter from Odex to come to you. To put things short, Odex wants the offender "not to waste our time and money on catching you and own up", and we will let you go, with paying them compensation of course. |
|||
|
|||
| starcade Posts: 204 |
|
||
| At this rate, they might as well just ban the presence of anime in Singapore... | |||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
Anime Castle
Robert's Anime Corner Store
AAA Anime Distribution
Big Bad Toy Store
