BitTorrent Anime Downloaders Identified, $3500 Bill in the Mail
Written by enigmax on August 16, 2007A company that distributes Japanese animated cartoons has tracked down thousands of BitTorrent users it accuses of breaching their copyrights and has successfully forced their ISPs to reveal their identities. Next step - threatening letters: “Pay Us $3,500 or Else”
Odex Pt. Ltd is a Singapore-based company that distributes anime in South East Asia. Created in 1998 it started distributing anime in 2000, later with titles such as Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, Mobile Suit Gundam and Chrono Crusade.
In 2007 a decision was made in the company to start targeting people who share their material via BitTorrent after they claimed their sales had dropped 60-70 percent in just 2 years. After using a tracking system to collect the IP addresses of sharers, they have successfully forced StarHub - an internet service provider - to reveal the identities of 1000 BitTorrent users they accuse of breaching their copyrights. It had previously forced the ISP SingNet to reveal its customers details.
In all fairness, StarHub did put up a fight to keep the privacy of its users but it was little use. According to StarHub spokesman Michael Sim, although the company originally said they had “an obligation to protect our customers’ information”, the pressure from the courts was too great. A court order against StarHub was obtained in a closed chamber session in the Subordinate Court which forces them to hand over their customer’s details.
“In the instance of Odex,” said Sim, “they have satisfied the court of their need for the information. As such, we will comply with the court order”
The next step for Odex is a familiar one to file-sharers: they will use the list of names that StarHub supplies to send them threatening letters(pdf) declaring that they’ve been caught sharing anime, such as the hugely popular ‘Bleach’, and that the only alternative to being dragged through the courts, is to pay a $3000-plus ‘fine’. Not that they’ll have much time to think about the next step - Odex gives around 9 days for a response before it threatens legal action.
According to Stephen Sing (a director of Odex) the “downloading situation” in Singapore is very bad: “We have engaged companies to track illegal downloads in Singapore, and ratio-wise, we’re actually right up there in the illegal downloads in the world, in terms of Japanese animation.”
Interestingly, Stephen Sing is also a director of the AVPAS - Anti Video Piracy Association of Singapore and has become very, very unpopular. Just after the Odex anti-BitTorrent campaign began, Mr Sing made the mistake of using an online forum to joke about how many sharers he was taking action against, and the guys over at HardwareZone caught him at it, via their dedicated (Official) Anti-Odex Club.
Mr Sing has been dubbed ‘the most hated main in Singapore’s anime community’, with anime fans putting up his photographs and personal information onto the internet, making wanted posters of him, posting pictures of his wife on the internet, threatening him with violence and promising to set fire to his house. At this point, Sing called in the police.
Next ISP on the Odex hit-list is Pacific Internet - if they win, that’s another 1000 BitTorrent users about to get threatening letters and demands for $3000 - thats 3000 users in total.
Should everyone pay up, Odex stands to collect a massive $9 million. No wonder the death-threats didn’t deter Mr Sing.
Previously: Anti-Piracy Lobby Pressures Police to Take On The Pirate Bay
Next: Comcast Throttles BitTorrent Traffic, Seeding Impossible
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LOL are you freaking kidding me? so the cause of all this chaos started from a little Singing noob reporting people on a regular basis? thank god im not in singapore. i hope his comp gets D-6′ed
These guys obviously haven’t seen a 4kids dub.
Let me first say this is rediculous! Secondly I am not entirely against companies coming after people who trade in their bootleg works. I AM however against the rediculous fines they charge. Come on 3,000 bucks for anime, when will the courts start to protect the consumers from over zealous and outrageous claims of loss. Why not just charge them the fee they lose buy not having the episode bought from them plus maybe a little administration fee. When you take into account that their most expensive box set of dvd quality shows is roughly 30 bucks well where do they justify the extra 2700???? SERIOUSLY!
ridiculous, just hope this wont spread to different part of the worlds.
[quote comment="148083"]
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:p
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“While it is the right of companies to get paid for their work, it is not the right of companies to earn as much as their target sales figures at any cost.
It troubles me when logic like this is used to justify “punitive damages” and “lost sales”, which can be arbitarily declared. I do not believe the punitive value of an anime series is $10,000 per episode - this would assume that greater than the population of Singapore, 4 million people, will benefit from each download at the expense of the company, when it clearly isn’t possible.
Even $3000-$5000 is a stretch, and assumes you’ve taken over a full theatre and shown the fansub there.
Respect through fear, unfortunately, works. Not that it will cow everyone under the sun, but it works.”
But see, I’m not talking about a unit cost here. (Though in defense of your arguement, the company in question might be. The article isn’t detailed enough for me to tell.)
I’m talking about a fee for the crime itself. Kind of like wether you dump a whole bucket of paper or just one, the fine for litering is the same.
Again, I have no clue how these laws play out in Singapore just this post (like the rest of them) is pure speculation.
Peace!
For those who keep harping on fansubs being illegal and such, just a reminder that this has become more than an intellectual property issue. It’s about business ethics and online privacy.
So uhm.. let me get this straight.. they gave the IP adresses and whatnot to a company that distributes anime on VCDs with shitty quality and bad/chinese subtitles?
First of all it sounds pretty much like bootleg to me even if it isnt, second of all shouldnt the company who sues people for downloading actually be the copyright owner and not a damn distributor?
“I’m talking about a fee for the crime itself. Kind of like wether you dump a whole bucket of paper or just one, the fine for litering is the same.”
However, this crime doesn’t leave a physical impact - unlike, say, littering. Or stuffing up a toilet bowl.
Nor is it stealing, solely because the original shop STILL HAS ITS PRODUCT.
Companies litigating for “lost sales” implies that it is their right to “have customers”, which is DEBATABLE. Whatever happened to consumer choice and discretion? Why is it law that the customer must satisfy a company, and not the other way round?
Any campaign must demonize its opponents to have any effect. This one is no different.
Someone should shot Stephen Sing in the head.
“Someone should shot Stephen Sing in the head.”
No. That would be wrong. Instead someone should jack off into his noddle soup, and put the video him drinking it on YouTube. His photos are all over Singapore now.
Odex doesn’t hold the copyrights to the shows, but they have created a so-called industry watchdog, AVPAS, and got several Japanese studios to join it. However, none of these studios have representatives here, and neither are the other distributors or anime broadcasters. The watchdog also shares the same address as Odex.
Even if the shows are not licensed to Odex, Odex is claiming that they’re cracking down illegal downloaders on the behalf of these AVPAS studios.
Let’s not forget that this is Singapore when talking about legalities and such. I’m not too familiar with Singapore law, but given the fact that a distributor of Japanese cartoons so easily obtained through court private IP addresses directly from the internet service provider no less, I’d say that the atmosphere over there isn’t the most consumer friendly.
“Well, we believe we suffered this much damage as a result of illegal activity on the defendant’s part, but have no way to stastically affirm this, nor can we prove a correlation between the defendant’s activities and our ’speculated’ losses… But we think you should listen to us anyway, because we’re rich enough to buy out at least 48 senators. Resistance is futile.”
;)
right now um in ksa
n um gonna b moving to states soon cuz half my family is there
so if i download torrents in the states [movies games animes,etc]
i should expect a lawsuit???????
like i’ll get charged just cuz um downloiading torrents??
[sumbosdy plz reply... pretty imp question if um gonna b thorn into jail for watching stuffs i wouldn bother watching if i had to pay for it...]
i’m trying to understand how downloading fansubs is illegal. anime was released in japan for free over tv - those people who created the anime earned their keeps through tv commercials. by the time the anime is aired, they have been paid for their good work. once aired, people should be free to share any recordings of the program they did. suppose i’m japanese and i record the entire series of an anime. if i share these recordings with a friend, is that illegal? and suppose i know of a friend outside japan who likes animes, and out of goodwill i sub the recordings and share them with him. how is that morally unacceptable?
Did anyone see that photo on 4chan of Stephen Sing doing it with a goat? Photoshop or not he should be careful. You can get arrested for that in Singpore!
@lordluan: They reair on tv and release dvds. That’s why.
“…successfully forced their ISPs to reveal their identities. …”
how much money is going do the ISP.. i wonder…
There are tons of these downloaders who wouldn’t be downloading and watching all that anime if it wasnt free anyways. Mostly teens i’d presume. Anyway, the ratio of p2p downloaders is actually negligible. Maybe the market is bad and this is the only way left to make money for odex. Use the law against the people that was meant to protect them *shrug*
@most unique
I just downloaded Hide IP Platinium just to be sure…
So now i have:
1. Changed MAC address
2. Hide IP Platinium
3. PeerGuardian 2
—
WTF!?!?! This is BT!!! n00b, do u know how COMMON BT PORTS ARE!?!?! even if u change ur external ip, it still gets fowarded to ur ip your isp issues u, oh and bt ports are soo distinctive because of the bandwidth they use.. all your isp needs to do is finger your ip and look at your “abnormal” bandwidth usage and viola! see that? TCP/UDP incoming outgoing data streams ahh.. :D :D dead meat! Solution, use direct download, tunnel ports and proxies, ssh connections.. blah blah blah.. and use TOR, dont use bt!
Well hardly anyone buys from Odex cos it’s terrible quality. In the age of DVDs, they’re selling VCDs, with really shitty encoding, bad subbing (and even worse dubbing) and to top it off, sometimes missing the inclusion of the English language all together.
Other than that, does anyone know whether its possible to route
Can someone write to the distributor from japan or the actual anime production house? or even their marketer? and complain about the poor quality of Odex’s work and suggest to revoke their sole distributor’s rights? so Odex got no more reason to sue?
Will this help? Can someone actually try doing it?
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