Crackdown on Anime Piracy The Sequel
For lack of a better title
While it wasn’t Odex this time, they have become synonymous with anime piracy, so they get the blame.
Nope, this time it was Showgate inc.
A quick check on Animenewsnetwork came up with this
Japanese anime production and distribution company Toshiba Entertainment Inc. will be officially renamed Showgate Incorporated. The company was previously known as Amuse until 2003, making this the second time the company has undergone a name change in the past decade. Toshiba Entertainment has handled production for a wide variety of anime projects, including Genshiken, Noein and Shakugan no Shana.
No idea they did Shana as well.
Anyway, here’s the low down on the alleged “crackdown†so far.
According to sgcafe,Showgate inc has sent the much feared letter to at least one unfortunate fellow, needless to say, anger and chaos ensued. (ok that was an exaggeration)
You can check out the latest happenings here and here.
The New Paper, a tabloid over here has published a story on this as well.
Huh what Odex, Fengshui Girl FTW!
A quick read reveals that the individual has been offered a respite from this ONLY if he was not the offender in question. That about leaves the possibility that he still faces the possibility of a fine of a staggering 200,000 SGD! In short, no first warning this time round. He himself has admitted to downloading Devil May Cry, a spin-off from the hack n slash game from the same name.
While this ostensibly does not bode well for the anime fan, I am inclined to take a “well it’s sooner or later†stand. That said, I am obviously dreading this turn of events. Could this be the beginning of the mass exodus of otakus? Could we be wiped out? Stay tuned!
In other related news, I was reading up on Danny Choo when I came upon one of the member news here. Member Actar reported that several scenes depicting lesbian or gay in the latest episode of Zero no Tsukaima : Princess no Rondo was censored, namely the kissing scenes between Momo what’s her name and Louise. I was stumped initially when I heard Zero no Tsukaima was being screened, but I should have known better, given the country’s strict laws with regards to gay. Heck, i shudder at what they did with Tiffiania freaking eyes (boobs). Note to Odex, if you are going to show any anime, make sure it’s compliant with the laws without having to censor! The offending scenes can be found here at RandomC.
Smuck!
what a turn off everytime i see that face on the paper. pui.
i think mediacock fails to do its homework. if they did, they would have know that Zero no Tsukaima is an ecchi anime with plenty of fan service so why bother showing on national TV if they are going to censor stuffs?
You’ve been Daily’ed! Congrats on being mentioned on The Singapore Daily.
@gordon:
That’s the problem with Singapore in general.
You must acknowledge that this country is a little more than a well-oiled corporation with “statedom” and “governance” slapped onto it to make them legitimate nations. Think of “Gattaca” mixed with Umbrella Corporation (minus the Raccoon City incident virus).
There has been a trend for the Singapore authorities to “milk” as much money/potential in any industry as possible, without knowing the implications of “killing the very soul” of those industries. (I suggest reading Zer0’s musings on the “Government’s milking of an industry” — which can be found towards the end of the post — as a perfect illustration of what I’m trying to say.)
Looks like I’m calling it quits for my once beloved hobby.
LOLZ… They will never learn their lesson… as in those companies… =P… LOLZ offending us will n could be their downfall!!!
Sakurazaki
oh it doesn’t really matter to me whether they do any kind of crackdown or not. i’ve got friends in malaysia and china who are downloaders and i’m betting that no one catches people in these countries. i can always ask them to help me out in downloading whatever anime i need and then when we meet up (i’m studying in a foreign country with them btw), i can just collect my anime from them. no problem..