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NEWS: Court Orders Singaporean ISPs to Name Illegal Anime Downloaders

As I implied earlier, I think the RIAA is going to keep a close eye on this one to see if they can implement it in the US.

b: Buy expensive sushi which tastes alright but take a long time to serve

Well, the deal was said to be made to get Singapore more anime, so we'll see what new stuff comes out. I hope Haruhi (just like Malaysia has it shown on TV, late at night)...

I kinda believe what caused the fall in sales was coz of the increased amount on anime shown on TV in Singapore. We had Inuyasha, Fullmetal Alchemist... and we also have access to Animax Asia.
Note: Animax has nothing to do with Odex, its an Asian branch of the Japanese Animax channel (i think), so we've been getting quite a lot of new stuff through this, like tsubasa chronicle II and Fate-stay night.

I'm a Singaporean, I download animes because even after a series is licensed here, it takes about 1-2 years (I'm serious) for it to be available on VCD/DVD. Some NEVER make it at all and it's simply licensed but nothing happens.

It's been cmpared many many times that the DVDs have poor image quality, and RUMORs say that they rip off the subs from fansubs or chinese bootlegs and then translating them to English. While they are rumors, many wil just regard is it is the case. We have yet to see a decently subbed series.

As for language, they make silly decisions on some titles (most prominently Bleach) by having Japanese/Chinese dub, but the subtitles are in Chinese. What gives? So if you don't understand Japanese or Chinese then I guess to bad?

Their Chinese/English dubs are monotonous. They don't have any QCer.

So it's common sense to resort to free fansubs with quality as opposed to paying for crap. I've browsed through the AdultSwim forums sometime back. Apparantly Odex does dubs for Geneon in America too eh? I saw the comments on the dubs were pretty bad too even from the perspective of a non-Singaporean. So you could get a rough ida on how crappy their work can get.



Also, if u wanna get the whole picture, don't just read the papers. They're kinda biased. Odex is in denial and refuses to admit that their crappy works is also a cause for the drop of sales in their produts. THey just easily put the blame on fansubs and go on STEALING milions of dollars from us.

Pfft. Odex make 4Kids' work amazing.

Calculusman wrote:

Well, if they're limiting this to downloading anime that Odex has already licensed in Singapore, then I don't really see how people have any argument against Odex. Complaints about advertising and quality aside, being licensed is being licensed and though, that's what your stuck with. I was kind of irked when some ISPs appeared to give out information even without a court order, but this time they got a court order, so I'm not really sure there is much to complain about here.

I can understand where you are coming from, however there is a lot more 'dodgy-ness' than meets the eye. Just observing some facts from the sideline:

1) There was no prior warning issued from Odex prior to them sending a letter that basically says 'come meet us to discuss this or we will press charges' - and as far as I'm aware, legal processes generally require the prosecuter to send out fair warning prior to action.

2) The discussion is really them asking for settlement, so should you decide to comply (ie everyone so far), you have to sign a letter of undertaking that hardly represents a legit legal document (you will understand what I mean if you get a chance to read it). In fact, there are clauses that state, among others, the right for Odex to show the letter of undertaking to third parties (nature unspecified) as they deem fit, while you are obliged to keep it confidential.

3) Odex is charging for infringement of copyright on backdated downloads from as far as 2 years ago, when the 1st batch of letters was sent out only in May (without prior warning).

4) The authenticity of the distributorship is also in question - from what I understand they may not have the rights for some of the titles they are claiming settlement on, while some other licenses were only acquired on a post-dated basis, for e.g. they might be charging infringement of copyright for something downloaded in March when they may have gotten the rights in June.

While there are flamers and such in external forums, there is also a fair share of older, more mature anime watchers who have given very valid points questioning the authenticity of Odex's motive, which have not been raised in the news reports nor answered by Odex.

the_chap wrote:

b: Buy expensive sushi which tastes alright but take a long time to serve

It's more like a) buy very, very expensive sushi which tastes alright but comes in tiny little portions and takes a long time to serve or b) buy expensive sushi that comes in slightly bigger portions and takes a long time to serve.

blame poh kim for bringing in taiwan imports rather then producing their own version.

starcade wrote:

As I implied earlier, I think the RIAA is going to keep a close eye on this one to see if they can implement it in the US.

LOL...RIAA == Music....MPAA == Movies and home video. Here's the catch, VERY FEW anime movies and TV shows are associated with companies that are members of the MPAA. 99% of the stuff in America, if pirated, will have to be pursued by the company itself.

That being said, I have a feeling that's why the companies are trying to guilt trip everyone about fansubs. At several conventions there have been "people in the industry" speaking out about how "fansubs are wrong"...they probably feel that there is a chunk of fansub downloaders with morals and if they can guilt trip them into ONLY buying DVDs then their profits can increase. One probably wonders "why don't they speak out about the massive amount of DVD ripping groups?" I think this is probably because MOST people who download DVD rips won't give a crap nor will be "guilt tripped" by their speeches, so they don't bother.

I mean, it's a guilt trip -- fine. But the problem is that you have a situation that -- frankly put -- anime is too expensive of a hobby for a lot of the fans which choose it.

starcade wrote:

I mean, it's a guilt trip -- fine. But the problem is that you have a situation that -- frankly put -- anime is too expensive of a hobby for a lot of the fans which choose it.

The problem with that is, 90% of anime is direct to DVD releases, which requires them to charge the prices they do in order to make a profit. If that is the case, the only shows we will continue to get are the ones that are marketable enough to show on TV, as that is where they would get then bulk of their money. Keep in mind that boxsets don't make them enough money to justify the entire process they put into the series.

Sorry dude, but you got the wrong company here. Bleach is not licensed by ODEX, by right odex do not have to cared about it, by TV tokyo ask them too, in writing... blame poh kim for bringing in taiwan imports rather then producing their own version.

And how long ago have you not bought an odex release... and how long ago have you bought an original release...

If you don't like ODEX release, you can always import... Oh they are not as fast as you demanded also... then download at your own risk...

ODEX have already admitted that their old releases almost crappy but they are changing... VOD services to bring you the latest releases is about to start. Currently it in the debugging stage.