More Odex Luv
After some guy linked my post on hardwarezone forums. I thought it’d be nice to do some follow-up. And look! Coincidentally, Kwok visits Odex for a focus group discussion. He gives a good summary of the discussion that took place, (although I thought it sounded a little slanted) and is worth a good read.
From the forums… let’s see…
The Berne Convention provides for national treatment of other countries’ copyright. In other words, France must treat a work that is copyrighted in the UK as if it were copyrighted in France, receiving the protection of French (not UK) copyright law.
The protections of the Berne Convention are incorporated into the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS agreement, thus making the Berne Convention practically world-wide.
and
However the TRIPS agreement does not demand that distribution of copyrighted material is a criminal offence unless it is done on a commercial scale.
Never mind what everybody has been hearing about copyrights and legality of fansub groups from Americans. After breaking copyrights was made a criminal offence in SINGAPORE, it’s pretty obvious that downloading and distribution of fansubs is pretty much illegal in Singapore.
So Odex comes along and pretty much declares that although they will be improving things, they have to clamp down on anime downloading this year.
I think there will be adverse reaction from two groups of people. One are those who are unhappy about being deprived of FREE stuff. The other being those unhappy about the lack of good quality alternatives.
I pretty much belong to the second group I guess, having income now. (where’s my AIR DVDs!) It’s nice to hear that Odex will be trying to produce higher quality stuff I guess. I just hope that it’s not all just empty talk. I think the community involvement part is all bollocks though. It’s not as if they are an animation company. They are a distributor, what kind of feedback they can get is pretty much limited. What they should do in fact, is given the negative feedback they get online, is to rope in people online in their product promotions.
Look at what Urban attic does, and I think it’s a pretty good example of success. I want things to be announced more clearly when products are coming. I DO NOT want to see trays of 3 for $10 anime VCDs scattered in baskets in shopping complexes. Just seems to cheapen anime as a whole. Support the local anime community more! Like prizes for Cosfest/EOY and stuff, and not just set up a useless corner booth that nobody goes to.
I think it’s a pity though, to be cracking down on anime. I think those of us with money, grew up with money to spend, with an interest in anime, because we had the chance to watch “free anime” when we were younger. Cracking down on this just drives people away. Pity.
For now we’ll just have to wait and see, and really cross fingers that Odex really does improve its stuff. It does have some good licenses coming in. (Haruhi right right!) Either that, or miraculously, some other company pops up. It’ll really be nice to see the anime industry grow.
January 2nd, 2007 at 7:49 pm
In other words, you are saying they should provide free anime for anime bloggers. Sounds good.
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Why not…. you do see many “services” out there which basically provide advertisement through blogger reviews. Reviewme.com is one. Such a method would come at little cost and the benefits are many. Ask weiye.
January 2nd, 2007 at 9:58 pm
True enough. It’s hard to deny the powerful effect tj_han has had on my spending…I still keep him as the guy responsible for pushing me into buying figures in the first place.
January 3rd, 2007 at 3:23 pm
“I want things to be announced more clearly when products are coming. I DO NOT want to see trays of 3 for $10 anime VCDs scattered in baskets in shopping complexes. Just seems to cheapen anime as a whole.”
Yes, yesyesyesyes. Agreed with community benefiting from proper alternatives. Because if we had more stores in the US that provided with announced high quality DVD packages with bonus material, or high quality figurines, or a larger variety of artbooks, it’d definitely be a start to expanding the business exponentially, especially with the increasingly large audience. ..It’d also make me very, very poor.
January 3rd, 2007 at 11:10 pm
they should just hire all the animeblogers as their consultants
January 7th, 2007 at 11:40 am
[...] More Odex Luv [...]
January 8th, 2007 at 12:02 am
I found something funny at ANN,
Original Source
“~ And Bandai, surely you can come up with some better way to handle your dubs than farming them out to the hack Singapore operation known as Odex Pointe Limited?”
Then I read something that gave me horrible thoughts.
“One might argue a case for Bleach, but MoHS was certainly the biggest and most talked-about new series both in Japan and in the North American fan community in 2006, so its inevitable licensing was unquestionably the most anticipated. And the quirky way Bandai has done it is certainly in line with the spirit of the series. Here’s hoping that Bandai does not hand this one over to Odex Pointe Limited!”
Heh ^^;
May 18th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
[...] news. So I went ahead and Googled for more information. One particular blog that I found has made several distinctive remarks. There is an anime licensing company in Singapore now, and from the looks of [...]
June 10th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
I download anime cause of Odex’s lousy quality. I hope they can improve themselves or some of us may get frustrated enough to just buy online or maybe, just maybe, open our own company to rival Odex…perhaps a company that could be contracted by Odex to do their subbing? That would be an idea…
July 15th, 2007 at 11:16 am
What is the use of providing better quality?
Speed up the releasing, thats far more critical.
August 11th, 2007 at 1:49 am
Dear Odex,
I am not certain if your command of the Japanese language is deplorable or is it the English language that you do not have a taste for, but what I am certain about is the absolute fact that your sub-titling of animes is hideous. Even a third-rate anime viewer with little to no background in the Japanese language, like myself, can and have picked out discrepancies.
If you are wondering why your sales aren’t good, please stop looking at the competition and start looking at your goods (yes they are called goods for a reason!). Most fans are willing to spend on their anime collections, preferably in nice box sets with matching free gifts to boot, using the free downloads as a form of sampling in order to determine whether they should or shouldn’t purchase the entire box set.
However your products are just so beneath any standard of satisfaction that you can’t even compete with NON-professional fansubbing communities! I sincerely hope you will prove us all wrong with your future releases.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I really love your blogs tedfox, they make sense more than the constant ramblings of most other online forums/blogs that just cuss at ODEX, without actually providing a helpful view of the situation
Yes, I really wish they up the quality of their stuff, I personally own many of their releases, I can say some are okay, some are below par, some are absolutely horrible. There is not one that is supberb yet…
“Speed up the releasing, thats far more critical.”
We are already faster than the USA(the companies in the US have to bid for licenses, you want to spend more money). We will never beat HK/Taiwan in speed, but its as fast as the Japanese companies allow. And licensing is really expensive, just ask the industry representatives at US anime sites.
“One are those who are unhappy about being deprived of FREE stuff.”
Totally agree. People who fit the above description should go burn themselves in a fire or maybe work for someone without pay and see how they like it
Its perhaps because of the freeloaders, that legimitate fans are suffering greatly. Although this is actually my opinion, the US companies are also facing this problem. I am pretty sure that not everyone bought the TMoSH DVD in the US after watching…
What we need now is 2 way comms with ODEX, and not ramblings on one side and only crackdowns on the other
My 2 cents
August 13th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
It will be great if Odex were to improve their anime goods quality and their subtitles too. Who doesn’t want free stuff when it is placed right in front of them, right?
Anyway just hope that they will not only improve the quality but as well speed up the release of the series. (I waited the Trinity
Blood vol. 2 for months as an example)
But still, it cannot blames thoses who download the anime series and thus caused their sales to go down.
[Can just ignore my message if you think that I am writing unrelated to the topic…._)
Perhaps due to this reason, I also download anime episodes to get better enjoyment (hope that i won’t get a warning letter in my mailbox, haha :D)
August 18th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Well for me is I’m now boycotting anime VCD/DVD that is supplied by Odex. Whenever I go to any VCD/DVD shop, I will check. Once confirm it is from Odex, I will leave the shop. Simple as that. No point buying their products when its quality is bad and the way they handle things in a childish way. Why I say childish ?? Simple. It is like a child who can’t win a fight and start to cry. And when the adult interferes, the child win the fight. Come on ODEX. You will get more support when you educate people. By suing them, you create more hate. I wouldn’t buy your product now even if your quality improve. Everyone who see this message, don’t buy the Anime VCD/DVD from Odex. Not worth the money.
August 31st, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Personally, I feel that anime lovers will spend money on animes. However, how many of us will just buy after reading a synopsis? There comes the great benefit of ‘free’ anime. It lets us know whether we like it or not before we buy. Furthermore, it drives anime lovers nuts having to wait for so long before the DVDs are relased. The itch to watch it really haunts you. For myself, i just really wanna know what’s gonna happen next and if waiting for a week is so painful, what more with months?!! I think Odex didn’t handle this incident very well. I mean i understand as a company, they are looking to maximise profit but without prior warning, it just makes everyone hate them. Even if they managed to stop everyone from downloading, they can’t stop those non-Singapore based website from letting us watch for free either. I think Odex really got to re-think their strategy. Better quality, higher speed and even cheaper prices will really move anime lovers. At least it will for me.