Forum - View topicNEWS: Singapore Anime Distributor Denied Third Court Order
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Pete577
Posts: 18 Location: Michigan |
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You put this so well, I can hardly describe it in words |
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hikura
Posts: 565 |
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I always supported companies or artist who who brought me my favorite things.While i always could not get an item immediately(because it si extremely tough fincially) i do my best to get it down the road.While yes i do have to be picky on anime and manga(can not buy everything) i do support the titles i like by purchasing them(either from japan or thru a company that translates it and puts it out). As far as me speaking up about the illegality of this issue or similiar i always spoke up.Maybe not here but i have and will continue. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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This is something I've wondered quite a bit about myself. I can only assume that theres some sort of legal reason that makes it easier to go after downloaders. I've said it before and I'll say it again. As long as free downloads are available, people will download them. Scare tactics might cause some people to give it up, but theres enough people that wont and enough ways to get around the potential danger that its never gonna come close to stopping fansubs. Odex seriously needs to: 1) Accept downloads as a reality in this industry. 2) Stop fighting this battle which theyre never gonna come close to completely winning and stop invading peoples privacy, by abusing a loophole in the law. 3) Improve their own product so its at least as decent as the downloadable versions. Once theyve done all that, then if they want to take some legal steps to cut down on downloads, (similar to ADV) fine. Right now though, theyre just a 3rd rate company whos trying to solve their problems by blaming it all on fansubs. I certainly cant blame the Japanese copyright holders for giving them the green light to try this if theyre commited to doing it. |
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ultrapostman
 Posts: 164 Location: New Jersey. Don't you just love traffic circles? |
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Why do so many people just download? Is it for better quality? My computer sucks, but the quality of a fansub doesn't bother me that much because, if I like it, then I'll buy it eventually. Just watching fansubs is much safer, so I don't see why it isn't more popular, unless most people are really picky about quality (assuming that most fansub watchers have better computers than mine). |
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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[/quote] Because they couldn't get nearly as much money and it would be more difficult to find them and prove it. There are far more leechers and than fansubbers, and the fansubbers come from all over the place. I'm sure some people involved in fansubbing are from Singapore, but probably only a small portion. The number of fansubbers from Singapore is probably in the double digits. And while some people involved with the fansubbing process may be from Singapore, it's not necessarily the one that uploaded the video. So they would have to hunt harder to figure out which ones are from Singapore. It would be more effort for a much smaller group of people. |
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ultrapostman
Posts: 164 Location: New Jersey. Don't you just love traffic circles? |
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Because they couldn't get nearly as much money and it would be more difficult to find them and prove it. There are far more leechers and than fansubbers, and the fansubbers come from all over the place. I'm sure some people involved in fansubbing are from Singapore, but probably only a small portion. The number of fansubbers from Singapore is probably in the double digits. And while some people involved with the fansubbing process may be from Singapore, it's not necessarily the one that uploaded the video. So they would have to hunt harder to figure out which ones are from Singapore. It would be more effort for a much smaller group of people.[/quote] It would definetly be more difficult, but still possible. And from Odex's position, I think the rewards would be greater. They could fine the fansubbers much more than downloaders, which could cause serious problems for some of them. In addition, there's a good possibility that by prosecuting the fansubbers from Singapore they could find evidence of fansubbers outside Singapore that are connected to the native fansubbers. I think that would make sense, since foreign groups might want natives to help them translate the fansubs into other languages (or are Singaporean fansubs mainly english?). Even if Odex only managed to stop fansubbers inside Singapore, that would still send a powerful message to the fansub community at large. Odex has the support of Japanese copyright holders, and that might scare some groups into compliance, although some would obviously continue. |
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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Even if Odex is launching an over-reaching legal campaign, isn't that just the other edge of a two-sided sword to internet piracy? With the NFL season upon us, this thread/issue kind of has the flavor of contract disputes. When a player holds out for big money they say 'it's nothing personal-just business', yet every once in awhile when it backfires and the player finds himself cut the crocodile tears roll out and its' 'management has no right to do this.' It never gets any public sympathy, because when a issue is stretched one way, you know it will pull back hard the other way sometimes.
When you have a large fansub/pirating community that puts material out free and easy access, reality dictates your going to have companies occasionally 'steam-roll' a crack-down, that's just the nature of the beast. While I'm not giving Odex the 'thumbs up' here, on the other side of the coin when you watch illegal downloads you can't really play the 'innocent bystander/aggrieved consumer' routine when hambone crack-downs roll in. No matter how low the risks seem with fansubs, or wide-spread it is, it's still illegal and someone always going to bite back sooner or later. |
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kokuryu
 Posts: 915 |
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We will see how Singaproean law cuts this - its kinda muddled when it comes to some things, so Odex might still not have any legal standing even with the consent forms.
In the end it will be both good and bad for Odex - there are plenty of other anime distributors in Singapore that do an excellent job with the translations, and quite frankly I prefer some of those to the versions released in the US. So Odex will become known as the General or some other such thing in Singapore, and nobody will buy from them anymore. The two companies that signed with Odex to do the persuits just signed off on not having a market in Singapore for the next 20 years - 1 generation of youths and their immediate peers - they dont take too kindly to being betrayed. |
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wao
Posts: 224 |
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Well, once the Japanese companies back them up from my pov there's not much to be done.
And at least I think ODEX has made one big step forward by finally: a. UPDATING THEIR SITE!!! b. Mentioning what titles they actually have. Gee whiz, they had Speed Grapher! I didn't know that. (Who the heck is going to buy that though, I wonder...) c. Having an online purchasing system through PayPal (Generally $20* for one VCD box = 13 episodes - this is cheaper than the usual price I used to see in shops, around $25-$29 for the same; curiously enough DVDs are exactly the same price o_O Why?) *The system works in terms of points; 1 point = 1S$, and each set costs 20 points + 1 reward point. So buy 20 boxsets and get one entirely free. d. Offering a VoD service ($2 per ep, each ep valid for 7 days). Currently this only has Seto no Hanayome and Tokyo Majin season 1, but hopefully they'll bring in more. Well, I still am ambivalent about buying their previous releases - even if I can watch without subs, I don't want to buy it and have it implicitly mean that I support that kind of quality, but I support the VoD service (even if it means indirectly supporting ODEX). Since I can't subscribe to Animax, if I can just get my parents to let me take control of my bank account once and for all (surely 18 is an old enough age?) then this would be a very affordable method for me if I just wanted to watch and not commit myself to buying the VCDs/DVDs as the only way of watching (if I did the latter with Speed Grapher I think I'd kick myself.) |
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HitokiriShadow
Posts: 6251 |
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But Odex seems to hate effort. And I think the difference in effort is quite a bit for a significantly smaller number. And it wouldn't really fix the problem, since most fansubbers probably aren't based in Singapore. I don't think they would want to bother with people outside of Singapore because, even if they had the right to sue, it would require a hell of lot more time, money, and effort. It would be cheaper, less time consuming, and easier to actually put out a product people would buy than go to go after fansubbers outside of Singapore. Odex is going for easy targets with minimum effort and expenses necessary on their part. I don't buy that these thousands they are taking from the people they are extorting money from is only covering a small portion of their expenses. |
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weils
Posts: 44 |
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Odex updating their site? Just for shows, since the Japanese companies are coming over to support them. Why was the site down for 6 mths plus until when Odex seek help frm lots of channels for its appeal case? I live in Singapore and I know the news what they have been reporting. Anyway, our local papers have been one-sided in this whole saga. I do not trust Odex, judging from what the directors at the company are saying, they always give lots of excuses for their actions. There's one site here that does not support Odex's actions, and the moderator has compiled a list of Odex's claims and the truth the moderator provides. Link: http://www.xedodefense.org/articles.php?art_ID=4 I do have 1 question for the people living in the US and other nations...does your anime companies over there support fansubs or admit that they do help boost sales? Does fansubs and the anime industry work hand-in-hand, though by compromise, over there? How do your countries allow fansubs and downloaders to continue? The above question posed by me needs to be answered urgently, because that's what most of our anime community in Singapore thinks of other countries' anime community. |
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weils
Posts: 44 |
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Hi Zac. I'm a Singaporean and strangely, Odex has never given any offenders warning letters prior their taking action. The first thing they did was to catch the downloaders by surprise: paying them "compensation costs" or else face legal action. So they never got any hint of negative consequence to stop downloading. All I heard from my local news is that one of the directors of Odex (Stephen Sing) was interviewed and asked on the question of prior warning. He answered there was no need to send any, as he believes that the downloaders are hardcore and won't take heed to any warning. Now Odex is saying in our local news that whatever excess compensation costs they get from offenders will be given to charity. They have never calculated the costs that offenders need to pay. In some of my local forums, some who only downloaded around 4-8 episodes is the same as others will downloaded more. Even though the press do not reveal any suspicious intentions and actions from Odex, the anime community here and even neutral people know that Odex does not do this for anti-piracy, only for profits. "Sing states that Odex is only going after regular, high volume downloaders and that the company would release information on all sums that it collects through these actions." The statement above is not true, as Odex has claimed compensation costs from offenders who downloaded as less as 4 episodes in a 6 month period. Such information on their part of releasing info on the sums they collected can be faked. |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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As I've written in another thread, companies in other countries couldn't, wouldn't and shouldn't "allow" fansub distribution. They simply know that going after individual fansub downloaders are not worth the time and money because: 1. Other countries are generally larger and more populated. It's more difficult and resource-consuming (time, money, and manpower) to trace down individuals. 2. Most free world countries do not have public Internet monitoring measures (I'm not going into Echelon here), but Singapore is an exception. Compared to ISP of other countries (especially those with civil rights movement histories), Singaporean ISP are more likely to cooperate with law enforcement and/or license holders e.g. Odex. 3. While license holders will never admit publicly, some of them may consider fansubs as free advertising and may increase potential sales. With that in mind, it might not be straightforward and easy to organize at least a majority of major companies to join the anti-individual downloaders crusade, as some companies may consider such actions would hurt the market in a long run. Odex, however, is almost monopolizing Singaporean anime licensing market and can do almost whatever and however they wish. EDIT: Rephrased the third paragraph to emphasize my point. Last edited by dormcat on Fri Aug 31, 2007 11:45 am; edited 1 time in total |
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DarkMirage
Posts: 19 Location: Singapore |
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Or in other words, anime downloaders in Singapore are getting screwed because it is a lot easier to screw us :)
Seriously, if Odex's sole intention was to stop people from downloading, they would have sent out a warning letter instead of a $3000 fine. That's all it would have taken to stop people from downloading. And this whole uproar would not have happened. And ultimately, this will do nothing to deter the real hardcore pirates who are supposedly the destroyers of everything that is good and pure. They will simply move on to other means of downloading that are not traceable by BayTSP. |
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hagakure|returns
Posts: 407 |
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Because fansubber do not reside in Singapore. They can be all over the world, thus tracing them and bringing them to singapore court is almost impossible. The laws are different depending on which country you reside. |
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