Odex working with IPOS to catch downloaders?
Was reading Tsubaki rant about bad licensed anime in Singapore, which lead me to a post by DrmChsr0 ranting about rumours and ODEX. That got me very curious. So I went to search around to see if there’s anything to substantiate the rumour. *mindless rambling follows*
*image stolen from Tsubaki. Don’t sue me!*
THIS IS NOT SOME NEW LAW COMING INTO PLAY, but rather the enforcement of a law that came into force last year which applies to breaking copyright. And it’s still just strongly rumoured
The only thing I found was an anime screening by ODEX supported by IPOS in october @ Asean Museum with the puporse of :
The marathon is part of a movement to raise awareness of the value of intellectual property.
There was another blog talking about the same rumours.
Japan distributors also granted Odex some ‘Care’ rights of various anime titles which is both under and not under their distribution rights. One of such is Bleach [Damn it lo!]
Odex aim is to send a letter of Fine of 1000SGD to those who d/l anime. In this way they can earn quite a sum due to the many household that are downloading.
I wonder whether Peter [Boss of Odex, cuz I know he does Subs for his products from FanSubs] will need to pay the fine as well?
As tsubaki mentioned, the situation of licensed anime in singapore is terrible. A serious move as rumoured by ODEX would just kill any interest in anime in Singapore, especially since things fall under the criminal law.
I’ll say that ODEX has some VCDs of series I might actually like. For example, Love Hina and 12 Kingdoms. But the number of DVD releases are way pathetic. What I want are DVD releases. I’m still hopping for DVD releases of AIR, Haruhi, Kanon to name a few. I’ll gladly buy them! (DVD release with english subs and jap audio please)
Which means a monopoly on the anime market, with few releases, so what are us as consumers expected to do. Not to mention, the quality of the releases are utterly disappointing. Don’t even start with the packaging, the subbing is of a quality you don’t expect of a profession product. I’m quite sure that in Singapore, the companies themselves download fansubs as a reference to their own subbing. How’s that for professionalism.
And as DrmChsr0 commented , we have two big anime conventions, yet we don’t really see companies like Odex supporting them. Where does this leave us consumers again.
I’ve got friends who watch anime entirely from youtube. Would Odex sue them? I too have friends who wouldn’t want to download from bittorrent, but asks their friends to send them anime episodes. Would Odex go after downloading of unlicensed anime series. I for one wouldn’t be bothered to watch the super old/not interesting series that they release. Would they go after bloggers first! Since bloggers are obviously getting their anime from not quite legal sources.
Question, would this stop your downloading. (Or would you stop downloading after the first headline appears. “Boy sued for download episode 4-6 of naruto”.
There is a site (http://www.narutofan.com/) that allows HTTP downloads of naruto episodes. It was mentioned in the papers and no one gave much of a shit about it
Point? Look at the people around. We don’t give much of a damn.
Oh good point. I totally forgot about narutofan. Narutofan is another additional story, incurring the wrath of distributors and fansub groups.
You’re right though. Another thing to ponder! Would Odex sure all those naruto downloaders who pay to download from there. (I sincerely doubt any singaporean is doing that though. Singaporeans just want free)
Whats the frigging problem man…the government goes on and on about “piracy steats creativity” and all that shit. Why the hell are they doing this shit? Profit? More likely, but first lets get down to basics, why are WE downloading it “illegaly” online? Because the anime that we want can’t be found on the shelves of our little poh kim shops! And also, its too dam expensive, like everyone else has been ranting about how they wouldn’t want to pay $30 for some piece of cra. I totally agree with them. Excuse me then..^^;;
The origin of this rumor is Shia and I think it’s would be better to check what he really heard after all this is how rumors can get ridiculously bloated.
I’m of the opinion that Odex does not have the financial muscle to pull this off unlike RIAS. Since the onus is on Odex to provide evidence of anime downloads to the police, it would require monitoring online traffic (packet scanning I understand) and that’s costly to implemement. The mention of ‘care’ rights and fining households in the other post sounds highly dubious. For one, the fine would not go into Odex coffers.
The only feasible way out (if they are bend on nabbing anime-downloaders) is for Odex to piggybank on RIAS existing internet monitoring infrastructure which I doubt would be giving priority to anime since after music, movies and softwares should take precedence.
Just my thoughts.
I agree about taking the rumours with a pinch of salt. Another rumour, they’ve got SHnY too. ( I want in DVD!) I want AIR too! Why didn’t they bring Air in.
I’m not too familiar with the laws, but I don’t think Odex needs financial muscle. With things being criminal law now, they can get the police to do it for you, and probably go the same route as RIAS. Would it be that hard to monitor? My bittorrent client has a list of peers with their I.P. addresses…. and I don’t think the government cares much about protecting our privacy, as opposed to inviting businesses in.
That said, it was interesting to see people’s attitudes towards downloading anime vs buying licensed ones in Singapore.
Actually RIAS was the one who provided the evidence in the latest arrests.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/235999/1/.html
Tracing IP is a non-issue, they can do that easily. The challenge is to dechiper the data being transferred. As I mentioned (I may be outdated on this) this requires a packet scanning technology. And I don’t they can use BT clients to trace since they’d need to partake in illegal filesharing. Hard to stand in court even for the sake of crime-busting.
Actually I hope Odex sees this discussion and realise that there IS a strong demand for DVDs as opposed to VCDs. They need rethink their paradigm of trying to sell weak-sauced VCDs to their imaginary target group.
Anyhow I mentioned earlier at Tsubaki’s that there’s a anime DVD shop at Chinatown point selling Taiwanese R3s. They are very current and the quality is most excellent. It’s a real pity they are out of Mai HiME DVDs. Do check them out if you have the chance to
Hmm, the impression I had was that RIAS filed the cases. Like maybe they used bittorent and see the i.p. addresses and then reported them. I don’t see how they can legally sniff out evidences in the first place. Hand over the i.p. to the police, then the police do the sniffing. Of course, that’s just my impression. Who knows.
Yeah, I saw your comment on Tsubaki’s… but no english subs?
Come to think of it, if Odex licensed Mai Hime, wouldn’t these DVDs be illegal, or do they come under parallel imports.
Everytime I walk past a shopping mall, and they have those temporary tables in the basement selling tons of vcds, including anime… I always wonder who buys them.
My brain hurts from reading all the comments I got, so I’ll keep my opinion short.
Either start focusing on the small niche fans, or fuck off and get bankrupt. Look at those selling anime figurines. Isn’t that a even niche market? Still they are surviving. Scrap those shitty vcd, and go for DVD with good packing and extra dvd contents. Those will attract newer and richer anime fans.
Who needs to attract poor wannabes? Chances are, they won’t buy as frequent as those who are in the scene.
As for my wrath on ODEX… … …
Well, I am a student at Singapore Polytechnic, and not too long ago, they had this anime screening at the institution.
Skipping on the lousy subs (Personally, I thought they were fine, though I could rephrase some of the subs), what rankled on my nerves was that ODEX hired someone who didn’t know jack shit about the series he was promoting (for the record, they were Mahoraba, Mai Hime and Trinity Blood, and yes, he didn’t know jack shit).
Now, given this situation, would you buy your anime from a company who does not care about the consumer base? Because that was the impression I was getting from ODEX. I know I won’t be buying ODEX stuff for a long while. And should I ever get the urge, I’ll have second thoughts.
Well, I’ve been buying stuff from ODEX occasionally, but mainly because they are the only ones selling it in the first place…
And when I do, it’s not even worth paying all that much money. What I do is pool up cash with friends and just buy one box of VCDs…or two, depending on the series…
The problem with anime retail in Singapore is that there is no competition at all. This is all going the way of public transport. There is no onus at all for ODEX to brighten up it’s service aspect. What the heck? Aren’t they a tertiary industry company? Service orientated?!!
Your entry striked my sentiments. I don’t mind supporting local products providing they really hear my pleas. I even wrote to local Mandarin newspaper daily 1 year ago to say how to entice local consumers to buy their products. Among the three distributors, only Innoform passed the mark. Blue Max can support. Odex, failed miserably.
Odex is the main force for me to support the Taiwanese companies, like Proware Media (ironically controlled by Buena Vista, a subsidiary of Disney)and Bandai Entertainment USA.
But what Odex had done? At least, Blue Max want to support the local cons. In Malaysia, at least the distributors co-existed peacefully with the fans.
I don’t think it is satrical to say Odex killed local anime fandom. Without us, Odex will not survive either.
i never even heard of Odex before i got the news. or i probably bought their cd but never took notice of the company name. im not impressed at all. so many fan subbers out there can do better then those pple in Odex.
and what is singnet doing giving out information? i dun see any profit in for them. at most, id tear out my subscription and subscribe to starhub instead. the government seems to think that putting as many laws as possible and as early as possible means they will eventually all clear up. hell no. as such, im an aspiring artist relying on the anime industry as much as i can to see what i can do in future, and yay, they just crushed like 90% of the anime relations/interactions. as if it the anime industry in singapore is not small enough already.
odex, without any reputation for success and good work has decided to make themself famous. sry, i mean infamous, by triggering the wrath of the anime community. yes, they have the law to back them, but sry, it isnt doing too well for their goods and reputation and customer relations. id rather go without anime for years then buy stuff from them now that they have decided we are all criminals.
if i ever did buy, id be bankrupt cuz their few episodes are not worth the money and time i haf to spend buying them. they probably just signaled a war against anime fans/fansubbers, and id rather die then let themselves live in the thinking they are the ones suffering criticism and upholding some stupid justice for the sake of whatsits and whosits.
Wow.I was blown away when I flipped open the newspaper to find an article on the illegal downloading of anime.Never heard of Odex,though.So,does that mean it’s no longer safe to download from IRC and bitorrent?Which is wierd,since I reckoned that these two sources are supposed to be safer.If so,downloading from uploaded files,is that safe?
I personally am willing to fork out money to buy the vcds,but,waiting for some episodes and anime titles that aren’t even out yet…I’d rather continue downloading.The money paid for the anime would probably be almost as much as the fine paid for downloading.
Is downloading manga illegal anyway?And would that mean downloading unliscensed animes is still legal?Cuz if that is,I have to hide my manga library that’s stored in my comp.Though I do buy manga which are my fav.
They should add in special gifts and stuff that come along only with the purchase of the vcds,then more people would buy.Even if they suspect anime downloading as one of the objects killing off the sales shouldn’t they run some tests on the statistics first before deciding it?
I thought Customer Relationship Marketing is high on the lists nowadays,looks like I’m wrong.
Isn’t it time for us to unite and let those morons know that they have been neglecting our needs?! They are buying with fire, the result is going to be very obvious. Without mutual respect and cooperation, it will be a matter of time they will face financial crisis.
With their non-rationale behaviour and illogic marketing strategy, Odex sued the fans and recovered part of the losses. That’s nothing more than a short term boost, I strongly believe they will crush themselves and kiss the ground forever very soon. We have seen many companies that did the same to the consumers, the end result was expected.
If all of you here truly, like I do, demand quality product, we must show them our determination. I believe I don’t need to explain how you all should do it.
Isn’t it time for us to unite and let those morons know that they have been neglecting our needs?! They are buying with fire, the result is going to be very obvious. Without mutual respect and cooperation, it will be a matter of time they will face financial crisis.
With their non-rationale behaviour and illogic marketing strategy, Odex sued the fans and recovered part of the losses. That’s nothing more than a short term boost, I strongly believe they will crush themselves and kiss the ground forever very soon. We have seen many companies that did the same to the consumers, the end result was expected.
If all of you here truly, like I do, demand quality product, we must show them our determination. I believe I don’t need to explain how you all should do it.
i had just recieved a letter from them… and researched about this company, its true that their really crappy… Would u wana pay for something poor on quality or go for something which has better quality and FREE. i dont tink animes can get hot if it wasnt free, example, bleach… would it have becomed so famous if we didnt dl and watch it? would thier games, merch etc be so popular? i hope we can really unit and go against ODEX
Umm… kmjoe, I am not suggesting to everyone to go against Odex. As a matter of fact, we will not buy products if we don’t like the company… Don’t you agree? Until Odex proves its products are worthy, we should not waste our precious income on quality that is not up to consumer’s standard.
acctually since i bought shaman king(long time ago) i decided to just download, which we can get better quality and more importantly free =.=” if the gov is telling us to stop music and movie piracy, it’s acceptable… but anime? it would only kill both the anime and fan’s population. i would’nt mind paying for cable tv to watch my fav animes, but i doubt there is, and we dont really have much anime to watch on tv…
i truly agree wif franky… we need to unite… i don even no tt stupid odex existed until my fren gt a letter fm dem today… say thier wil fine him 10k 4 everi anime he dls!!!! WAT DE FUCK MAN… so i wen on a sreach on dem… i can say 90%… no 95% is fuck up wif dem… itz nt like we don support dem… i use to buy fm dem too… they seriouly SUCK BIGTIME… util nw thier website stil under construction… they r juz some scammer wif the law backin dem up… i gonna help my fren… was thkin of writin a letter n ask as many ppl to sign… any other suggestions to help me out… i need my dose of good quality animes!!!
one more thing… do this sound like a tactic? giving consumers lousy quality etc, giving them reason to download for free and catch and fine them? thats a pretty fucked up bussiness tactic they have, using anime like a human shield for thier own profit.
i thk they earn mor from de fine den they sell the outdated animes… ODEX IS A BIG FUCKIN SCAMMER… MONEY SUCKIN LEECHES… THEY CRAP LOWERR DEN THE SHIT WE WE PASS OUT… at least shit can b use as fertilizer… they r PURE TOXIC… KILLIN US ANIME FANLOVERS!!!
ya its true that thier money leechers and killin anime fan lovers… what i had in mind was, i dont mind paying for my favourite animes, BUT where can i get up to date original episodes? i will be 100% i wont mind paying for downloading legally like $1 or slightly more for just 1 episode man… can we do that? HELL NO!!! if they have the fucking brains to catch downloaders why wont they have the freaking brains to do this bussiness online by selling animes online with up to date episodes legally? look, we can now buy music online and for thouse who really appriciate music from thier favourite artist would buy them online or in stores. y? 1 thing is tt it helps the artist, the other is the QUALITY… We wana get what we pay for man… how can we even prevent piracy for anime when there isn’t even a better “original” way to obtain it?
Folks… We seriously need to calm down, we must think the most logical and constructive ways to tackle this problem. 1st, I suggest we need supports from all area. We need supports from students, fans, professionals, artists (if possible), etc… Through words by mouths, we can achieve maximum public awareness and I am sure those morons will understand we are standing on solid ground. We need to make sure they get one and the only one message – we are not simple minded pushovers!
2nd, we must organise ourselves into 1 solidified group. The reason for people being “exploited” so easily by Odex is we are too scattered… Am I correct? Even if we cannot solidified into 1 complete group, Odex will soon realise we are serious of not buying their products. A businessman gets hurt the most when the products are not selling. By using logical means of knowing that we, the consumer, are totally feeling withdrawn, they will definitely do a major soul research on themselves.
If we are to make sure they understand, we ourselves must think like a businessman too.
yup… i agree with you franky… but how can we do it? mayb a club or something? and we can unit and try to get this on newpaper and hopefully get more ppl aware of this problem… and help us in this “club” if possible
i’m always ON ah to support fansubber!!! count me in if u r doin sth to kick tt Odex and some other shit asshole tt help dem kill us otaku… de gov killed my love 4 comics too…
Folks… We can use “Friendster – Post Bulletin” to ask our friends to join us in our movement. It the simplest yet the fastest way of getting people awared of the situations we are into.
“Friendster” is the best way, by far I can think up of, to inform the public that we are somewhat being seen unfairly. I am very sure the general public, who are consumers too, will react in response in the way we are.
Today’s technology enables all people to link up with the virtual information that are readily available in the world wide web. All we need is to have all the fan sub committee members to take up major role in combating Odex’s attrocity.
How? we need volunteers to go shoulder to shoulder with us! I will be circulating informarion in the “Friendster”…
We can do parades on the Orchard Road and that will bring substancial attenion; I am sure it will lots of attention.
well… how would they notice us? unless if this matter goes to the newspapers etc when they can acctually see this happening.
franky my email for friendster is rc3_88@hotmail.com if you would to start the bulletin pls do send it to me =)
d.gray man wasnt licensed in animesuki.com but is licensed in singapore… how the hell we even know it was illegal download wen its not licensed in other countries?
http://avpas.com.sg/AVPAS_Authorized.html
A list of liscensed anime can be found there.
You can read another entry talking about it here:
http://anime.tedfox.com/2007/others/news/singapore-clamps-down-on-illegal-anime-downloads-finally/
Animesuki refers to anime licensed in america. The list of titles is different in Singapore.
Folks, I have started the bulletin in Friendster. I hope the message can be sent across to everyone… We have to wait for response before we react.
kmjoe, if we use newspaper as a means of starting public awareness… I am sure we will have to deal with the law later; Odex will most probably use it as a chance to sue us (e.g. they can sue us for slandering).
Tell our friends, let them know that we, the consumers, are not treated fairly and we will not pay for products that are not up to our standard. Let them know we will not tolerate sub-standard products that the company themselves are not even treating them seriously
they are now trying to use law to back them up and earning by “blackmailing” us
For those who can read chinese language, i urge you all read information from http://www.avpas.com.sg
Until the problem can be solved, I will continue to seek actions.
frank add me on msn too… i might b goin to thier office with one of the boy for “discussion”
Hello to everyone! I was thinking of organising a parade on Orchard Road… I need participants!
2 reasons for parade:
1) To educate the general public we have been treated unfairly with sub-standard products that are available in the market.
2) To use it as a chance for other companies to enter the Singapore Anime market; I hope it can create a healthy competition between companies. Such situation will undoubtly increase the quality of the VCDs & DVD.
P.S. Don’t you all agree the packaging sucks a big time?!
nw my concern is not about the package and quality… but the avalibilty of anime which problem lies all the way to japan… and i dont tink i can do anything abt tt…
why can’t we download anime? my fren told me tat his frens had been fine by ODEX… WTF… those animes tat we are downloading is not even license yet… why did they fine us? I need an answer please…
Most anime series (including the latest ones) are licensed by various companies in Singapore already (mostly Odex).
That’s ignoring the fact that downloading anime itself (raw or subs) are already a violation of copyright laws.
ya i agree… Odex should not fine those that download unlicense anime, cos ODEX themself did not license them.. so they dont have the right to fine those people downloading unlicense anime. If that’s the case.. I can also go round catching people and fine them when they download unlicensed anime??
hmm.. do u tink there will b a teenagers riots of downloading animes?? Complain to the govt.?? kicking off ODEX??
putting it simply. Odex is committing daylight robbery! Fine without
warning is just totally unacceptable! SCREW ODEX!!!
as seen in newpaper now stephen sing(the main guy of odex in sg) is being threaten… i really hope his company and him will go down as well… earning money this way is way off the line
haha… tok about customer service… the company instead of trying to woo the potential customer to become their customers.. they just managed to engaged the wrath of their potential customer and ensure that they will never become their customers…
1) What make them feel that these pple that they sue will buy from them in future just coz they dun dare to download anymore ? Especially when they start to hate that company?
2) Loss in revenue or projected revenue? Anyway.. what make them feel that those who download would had bought from them if there’s no download. The rationale is that people bother to download coz they don’t valuate this thing enough that they are willing to pay money for it. To these group of people, they will choose not to watch then to buy if there’s no such things as free download. So in this case, is it still consider possible revenue for them? But of course, by sueing this group of people, they managed to earn revenue and profit from a market sector that originally do not belong to them. Good move. But looking from a business sense, this group of people might just need some good convincing to valuate anime as something they willing to pay for and collect, then they might become the company repeating valuable customer. So by sueing them and after the media effort to publicize their effort for them to make them infamous, the company had successfully alienated this group of people. So to speak.. if this thing receive enough publicity, example, 20k in SG doing illegal download, 3k got caught (1k from each major ISP) and sued. Initially they have 20k potential customer but now, they have zero potential customer as the rest of the 17k will also get pissed of by the company move.
so to speak… if any of you here have link with some oversea company to make a legal import of anime into SG, you will have an opportunity to grab.
1) Due to Odex, SG people dun dare to download illegal anime
2) Coz of their piss of with Odex for causing them distress and fear, they will choose to buy from Odex competitor (which will be you) instead of Odex.
So if you make millions from this episode, remember to thanks Odex’s Stephen Sing for his help. But, for all we know, he might have already made the above plans with a business partner to run the business so that he can be a major shareholder and thus, he’s now just making Odex as a tool and scape goat to path the way for his new company and busines ??
I do really have a say in this… I have being a anime fan for a long time… i nv really faced this kind of ****… I have bought their products like Shaman king , gundam seed , gundam seed destiny , GOdanner , Melody of Oblivion ….
1) Usually people would buy something after watching the trial/test product and after u like it u buy it..[After watching the Downloaded "trial" version (fansubbed)..] Someone thinks it is to their liking then this show is worthy to buy for collection.
2) I believe that EVERYONE did face this problem…before..Going to All the shops that sell Anime in your area to be shock that the VCD is NOt out yet = =.. where else Singapore TV already Aired it..(including Japans).. Is the anime so “popular” or did they neglected it? DOes they have to wait until the anime fever is over then they Say :: O come on come back to this Anime, buy this product from us.Example:: I went to several area to look for D-gray.man VCD for like 2 weeks .. until i gave up finding it..(since the day Art central aired it until today)..
3)Talking about copy right.. Isn’t Fansubbed another people’s product? Once the Anime is Fansubbed by another Group other than
ODEX.. isn’t it their product? (copyright= editted/added something inside(the something belongs to them and it is not for resale) unless the company decided to release it.[I might not be sure about this]
4)Isn’t ANime like music? there is a “trial” perid? u download the something .. within 24 hours we must delete it? if not we could be sued/fine once traced?