Anime Distributor Has No Legal Right to Threaten BitTorrent Users
Written by enigmax on August 25, 2007A company that tracked thousands of users sharing anime via BitTorrent has lost its legal battle to force an ISP to reveal its customer’s details. The company would’ve used the information to demand $3,500 in compensation from each person they tracked - a plan which now lies in ruins.
Last week we reported on the Singapore-based anime distributor Odex Pt. Ltd and their campaign to track, find and threaten thousands of BitTorrent users which they claim infringe their copyrights. The demand - ‘Pay us $3,500 - or else’.
After previously forcing the ISP ‘Singnet’ to give up personal details (names, addresses) of its customers, they moved on to the ISP ‘StarHub’ who put up a fight but was also forced to hand over details. The next move was to force another ISP - Pacific Internet (PacNet) - to give up the details of a thousand of its customers so it could demand money from them also.
PacNet said that although it respects the rights of intellectual property owners, equally it believes in “protecting the privacy of all our subscribers” and refused to hand the information over. Odex went to the courts to force PacNet to comply.
Unfortunately for Odex, the court decided that Odex had ‘no right of civil action’ against those it accuses of infringing its copyrights. Apparently, Odex is merely a sub-licensee of its anime titles and is not even the copyright holder so it cannot take any action at all. It had also threatened criminal action against BitTorrent users - the judge quashed this threat too.
Furthermore, according to the report from ChannelNewsAsia, the judge wasn’t happy with the way Odex went after the BitTorrent users. He criticized the investigative methods used to collect their IP addresses and the manner in which it gathered other so-called ‘evidence’.
Odex is to appeal but in the meantime, they now know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a ‘pay-up or else’ demand. The judge has ordered them to pay more than $7,000 in legal costs.
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34 Responses
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At least some signs of sanity and reason by the judge.
BT FTW!
where can i meet this judge? finaly someone who isnt supporting this bull.
I wish we had a judge like this in Brazil…
I feel sorry for anime developers who fall victim to p2p piracy…they aren’t very rich and don’t have the money that the big guys do.
I support them via donations and purchase DVDs, etc whenever I have a chance.
[quote comment="152615"]I feel sorry for anime developers who fall victim to p2p piracy…they aren’t very rich and don’t have the money that the big guys do.
I support them via donations and purchase DVDs, etc whenever I have a chance.[/quote]
First of all, Odex isn’t an Anime developer, it’s a distributor.
Secondly, the amount of DVDs they sell is severely limited, most of their products are VCDs with crappy subtitling.
Support them? How?
Soooo, if Odex is what I think it is, they may not be a licensee anyway but a gray market [read: pirate] ‘distributor’ of anime anyway.
Before BT really came into its own there were a number of ‘distributors’ operating in Taiwan, HK and S’pore that you could get chinese/eng crappy subbed anime from. Where else, and how else could you get all of a 105 episode anime in a complete set for US$80?
And why? Because these guys aren’t licensed from the anime studios; they’re part of the ‘Singapore Night Market’ scene of rampant media piracy.
I’ve got complete sets of Macross 7, Hokuto no Ken, Lupin 3rd [all TV, movies] from these guys.
It’s a real hoot to hear that media pirates are going after their brethren who don’t require their services [anymore].
The company has to meet international standards at least, to make it appealing for overseas market in order to sell. They can’t even satisfy the local market in Singapore.
[quote comment="152577"]At least some signs of sanity and reason by the judge.
BT FTW![/quote]
Yes but like you most probably know it’s not from America!!! If this had happen in America those people would all have gone to jail for many years.
How about refund all those extorted… with interest?
What’s the name of that character in the picture accompanying this article?
>>>What’s the name of that character in the picture accompanying this article?
She was just a character design by Hiro Suzuhira (he’s the artist for Navel’s pr0n games).
Funny how Dark Mirage (pretty well known Singapore anime blogger) used the same image.
[quote comment="152615"]I feel sorry for anime developers who fall victim to p2p piracy…they aren’t very rich and don’t have the money that the big guys do.
I support them via donations and purchase DVDs, etc whenever I have a chance.[/quote]
But how do you support them if you don’t even know what they produce? It’s been said a million times but it’s true: most fans won’t be buying their stuff (be it original DVDs or the related merchandise) if they hadn’t seen it thru fansubs. It’s not like Japan where you can watch it on TV.
Odex is a distributor, and since the Japanese animators only authorised AVPAS to act (and that was mainly against commerical piracy), where do you think most of the money goes to after Odex sues the fans?
Odex isn’t sure too, it seems. One moment they claimed it was going to the Japanese companies; another time they said it was to cover their legal/tracking/admin expenses. But we know, don’t we. :)
The only anime Odex distributes is Gundam Seed Destiny, and it’s not a full license, if I hadn’t read wrongly.
can you say “pwnt”?
XD
[quote comment="152868"]
Funny how Dark Mirage (pretty well known Singapore anime blogger) used the same image.[/quote]
its the first image that appears when you type ‘Odex’ into Google Image Search…
[quote comment="152908"]
… Odex is a distributor, and since the Japanese animators only authorised AVPAS to act (and that was mainly against commerical piracy)…[/quote]
Not completely true. AVPAS = Odex. It is created by Odex to cover their backside while handling out the extortion letters.
Japanese anime house didn’t authorised anyone to become their IP police in Singapore. Odex made that up. Reports have been saying that Odex may be seeking the ‘official support’ from the anime houses in order to appeal the latest ruling.
The Judge makes a good point: Odex is just a licensee. They don’t own the copyright. Stephen Sing has been demanding money from people on false pretences. That’s called FRAUD, and Singapore takes crime and especially FRAUD very seriously.
Someone should tip off the Singapore Police about this.
Anime fans and Anime companies have always had a good relationship. Shame CONMAN Stephen Sing tried to cash in on that. Enjoy your time in PRISON, Sing.
ha! viva la bittorrent!!!!!!!!!!!!
I doubt that anime house will support odex . until now anime market outside japan is still consider very small market . you can see that no anime fansub group ever get sued . the worse is only a warning letter .
Who is this judge? I would like to have an autograph and a handshake because that is one fucking sane judge- thank you jesus!
Listen, Odex - you failed, of all the major companies what made you think you’d be able to chase the individual asses of those downloading? If other anti-piracy can’t how in the hell can you?? You fucking got owned and sadly the one who you appealed to for criminal action against us just fucking told you off and now you end up paying a total of 2 of our supposed asses worth of profit to pay down your legal fees-good for fucking you and secondly if you try to pull this shit off again, let me tell you, you might have better luck with the lottery damn piracy hater
OMFG if anyone is still reading all this crap check this out, Copied right from the Odex site:
“On the other hand, many other anime fans have responded by coming forward to admit that they have downloaded, and to ask for a settlement of any claims against them, even before receiving any letter from Odex. All downloaders who voluntarily settle in this way will be free from any legal action by Odex or the copyright owners represented by Odex for downloading, unless they subsequently breach their settlement terms by, for example, continuing to download anime illegally.”
http://www.odex.com.sg/
What a joke, they actually won’t pursue legal action if you volunatarily fess up, but think of this, you still pay they damn fee’s, its the same as recieving the letter 3 days later - what kind of bullshyt is this?
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