Following this, a couple of weeks ago we reported that Odex had tracked down thousands of BitTorrent users it accused of breaching its copyrights and was pursuing them for compensation payments. Lots of BitTorrent users received threatening letters after their ISP SingNet gave Odex their personal details. Other ISP’s stood their ground and refused to hand over the information.

After sending out these letters, Stephen Sing became very unpopular in the anime community with fans putting his personal information on the internet and making threats against him and his family. Add this to the claims that Odex stood to pocket $9 million if their threatening letters paid off, Odex must’ve realized that they were in the middle of a PR disaster and are taking steps to improve their image with their customers.

According to The Star Online, Sing said: “We didn’t expect such a reaction”. Quite. He continued “we learnt to be more humble and yes, we’ve made mistakes” which was probably a reference to his perceived gloating (in respect of chasing downloaders) on an online forum.

In several postings on the official Odex forum, Sing laid out his new strategy:

If an individual stop downloading now, today, on the 3rd September, 2007, he will have no possibility of ever receiving any letters from the copyright holders, (aka the Odex letter) as we will not take anything that he has downloaded before this date against him. We will not send any letters to him.

If an individual continues to download and shows up on our investigation we will send him a letter to ask him to explain why it is so. If he cannot give us a reasonable explanation of why that happened, we will reserve the rights to take legal action against him, with all the evidences that we have collected before and after the 3rd of September (there would necessarily be evidence after the 3rd in order for this to happen).

Addressing the claims that they were profiteering from their anti-piracy activities, Sing said:

We will invite or engage a reputable auditor to audit our accounts pertaining to the collection and costs of this exercise. If (note the word IF) there is any profit, we will donate all of them to a charitable cause.

Additionally, Odex went to court to force the ISP PacNet to give up their customer’s details but the judge decided that PacNet didn’t have to. In a post on their forum, Mr Sing has now confirmed that “…the current group of PACNET users will not be receiving letters from us.”

Wrapping up, Mr Sing said that Odex will from now on “focus enforcement efforts on those who have continued to download illegally even after the publicity in the press on this issue.”

In conclusion, referring to those who have already received letters, Sing said:

For those who have already received our letters, they have already been identified as heavy or persistent downloaders. We will continue to negotiate with those who have not settled the matter yet, or take action if we are instructed to do so by the copyright owners.

So ‘business as usual’ then.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.