Image taken from flash movie by NCH85
Mr. Siew Kum Hong, a Nominated Member of Parliament, posted the important parts of the written judgement by District Judge Earnest Lau, along with some of his own opinions on the matter. He was formerly a lawyer at Rajah & Tann, the laws firm which is representing Odex. Pretty interesting read. IANAL, but it seems to me that the main basis for which the judge made his decisions were as follow:
- Odex failed to prove itself to be the exclusive licensee for the list of works in question.
Under the Copyright Act, only the copyright holder or the exclusive licensee can initiate civil proceedings against infringers. They manage to do so only for one title, Gundam SEED. Only the authorization letter from Sunrise was accepted because it was addressed to Odex and Sunrise is a right holder. The other letters were either addressed to AVPAS or were not issued by a right holder but by another distributor. So essentially the judge was only wiling to hear the case out over one title. - The laws in question apply only to civil proceedings.
Apparently the laws invoked by Odex to call for pre-action disclosure of information are only used to aid civil proceedings. Since Odex cannot prove that they, being neither the copyright holder nor the exclusive licensee, have the right to launch civil proceedings against the list of infringers, they cannot request for pre-action discovery. Neither can they, using the same set of laws, apply for pre-action discovery in aid of a criminal suit because the laws in question deal only with civil actions. Furthermore, the court will only hear out a criminal suit if the case is brought to it by the Attorney General, and not Odex. - Odex failed to produce evidence of BayTSP‘s involvement.
While the judge recognized the proven ability of BayTSP as an internet forensic investigator based on previous cases in the US courts, Odex provided no proof that BayTSP was responsible for the data presented. The judge was also of the opinion that the US court rulings were based on the testimony of BayTSP’s owner and not on the tracking data itself. And if Odex did conduct its own tracking operation, the judge was sceptical as to whether it has the technical expertise to do so properly such that the results are reliable enough to be used in court. - ISPs are obligated by law to protect their users.
As Odex presented insufficient evidence to prove its claims, the judge is unwilling to force PacNet to go against its contractual and regulatory duty.
That is to say, either Odex has been treading on dangerous waters all this while, or they simply suck at preparing their paperwork. I find it hard to believe that they had a need to lie about BayTSP’s involvement, but why then did they fail to prove that relationship in court? At the very least, shouldn’t they be able to produce some kind of receipt after supposedly paying BayTSP so much money? This is either incompetence of the highest degree, or I am forced to conclude that Odex actually did the tracking themselves by studying BayTSP’s method, and they plan to pocket the so-called tracking fees they are collecting from parents.
Also, the most interesting part of the entire written opinion:
(a) For the Singnet case, the orders were made by consent. In particular, counsel for the Plaintiff mentioned for Singnet in those 2 applications to record the consent order before the court.
(b) For the Starhub case, Starhub was represented by counsel. However, the issues raised here were never fully argued before the court.
Starhub may have lost, but at least they put up a fight. PacNet’s case probably benefited from it. But Singnet settled by “consent”? Hey, do you still remember a certain The New Paper interview with Mr. Peter Go at the start of this whole mess?
The New Paper, 8 Aug 2007
Odex had to pay unnamed ISP. Since Starhub lost the case, there’s absolutely no reason why Odex would need to pay Starhub for what they had already won in court unless they were feeling particularly charitable. But Singnet settled by consent. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where the money went.
that just soo ruined my faith in singnet
im pretty retarded, but what you’re saying here is…
odex PAID singnet to reveal the identities of anime downloaders??
Ah. i see you updated the post. my bad.
No wonder I find it strange that there are 3 StarHub transparent proxies that seem to be perpetually connected to trackers that ODEX would love to camp on instead of any BayTSP IPs…
damn singnet sucks. now everyone’s gonna switch to pacnet.
I am a singnet user.
I was shocked to hear that singnet did not put up a fight.
This really sucks.
Now i really don like those peoples at the top.
F**K off singnet!!
haiz~ got to change my plan in the next 2 years… i guess singnet gonna hurt badly when they are doing promotion for their so godly MIO.
anyone for a cake?
…how can singnet do this……
Maybe you guys should punderstand the meaning of ‘Sing’ in Singnet.
Because SingNet = Government?
Let’s see what will Starhub do about this
Everyone got fucked by Singnet. GG.
It’s quite a surprise that singnet BETRAYED their customers in such a dirty way, and on top of it, made no effort to reconcile the case.
This is how this country is run; money talks.
what’s next?
singnet might have as well sell their soul and pledge allegiance to the almighty dollar!
whether or not there would be mass migration of broadband subscription away from singnet remains to be seen.
For the time being, singnet, get out of my elite, uncaring face!
I think it is safe to say that a large number of people are disillusioned with Singnet. All that talk about valuing our customers’ service is just given lip service when they couldn’t even be bothered to contest Odex’s court application.
@ LianYL: LOL I got the pun.
imagine odex paid $100 per IP they get from the ISPs for tat 1000 IPs, tat will be like $100,000. AND they fined each IP for abt $2000-$3000, isnt daylight robbery lol…
hm… does this mean that ….. OMG!! Curse you singnet!!! (sorry I am abit slow)
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If the company had been severely hit by illegal anime downloads,
wouldn’t it serve them better to improve and market their own products
better, rather than spending thousands identifying and blackmailing people?
This case reveals the true colours of irresponsible isp like singnet.
This is a clear breach of customer privacy.
If singnet can give customer’s details so easily to private companies, there’s no telling that similar cases will happen again in the future.
For example online shopping money fraud…
Crap! this pisses me off. Can we (singnet subscribers affected) actually file a class action suit against singnet in this context?
well, i am thinking since Singnet breach the terms and condtiotion of the Telecommunication ACT ( Chapter 323) on Duty of Licenses to their End-Users, does that mean Singnet user got the choice of terminating their existing contract with singnet for fear of future incident?
I think Odex also need to pay Starhub for the list of subscribers. The court order is only making sure Starhub reveal the subscribers. Odex still need to pay for the admin fees for Starhub to retieve the records.
@Freak Freak: I believe there’s a clause in the contract for people who signed up for SingNet, which states that they’re empowered to give your account details if you’re found to be engaging in illegal activities.
Not entirely sure about that, but that’s what I recall.
Also (this part’s helpful), I believe it states that they should give your account details to appropriate authorities… Which shouldn’t be Odex… Perhaps that part will screw them up.
IMO, I don’t mean to defame a certain ISP. But that certain ISP never had proper customer service to begin with when I had my contract with them. (A couple of years back, dunno bout now.) What more of thinking about customers’ pirvacy? Come to think about it, I’m glad they gave me such a sh*t attitude that time so much so I switched ISPs the moment my contract ended. ^-^
Let’s just hope Starhub gets their lawyers to do something. o.o
Just email the IDA and got my reply, they just giving shi* answer also.
For this case, we understand that SingNet had released the information toODEX’s solicitors as it was instructed to do so via a court order. On yourquery on whether you can terminate the contract, it would depend on theterms of service governed by the contractual agreement between the twoparties, i.e. yourself and the service provider, SingNet. Since thismatter is governed by a contract agreed between two parties, and there arelaws governing the enforcement of contracts, IDA cannot intervene. You maywish to look at the terms and conditions of the earlier contract that youhave signed with SingNet and contact SingNet if you have any queriesregarding these terms and conditions, or a possible breach of contract.
Best Regards
Shella Lee(Ms)
Competition Management
what do u mean by follow the court order ,when they dun even fight the case in the first place .
But according to the clause which states that ISP have the right to devulge personal information should the user engage in illegal activities.
Do they actually have to possess some evidence of illegal activity ?
Moreover, what constitutes illegal activities anyway? don’t tell me viewing live streaming movies is considered one.
i just have to hope Pacnet will be able to survive after ODEX appeal the case , if they manage to survive i will terminate my existing plan to join Pacnet even if i have to pay for breaching of contract.
Go Pacnet i support YOU!!!!
looks like illegal downloads will still go on for some more time haha
@mugen no ryvius: hell right man after they say odex got no f*****g rights… Watch this video it’s quite funny XD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3nztQHSlX0
we wait the moment is right, we shoot a lawyer letter back at the boss ROLF!!
i think they SCREWED up big time ignoring the privacy of their customers, now that the outrageous and shameful manipulation from Odex is shown for the world to see, its gonna spill over to them too.
Eh, one little comment. Corporations do not give out receipts to other corporations. It’s an invoice, given to tell you to pay.
Anyway even if they don’t have invoice, they should have signed quotation and signed purchase order. (Signed quotation not enough; just proves that they sought quotation from BayTSP, not that they actually hired them).
Well.I know which ISP to subscribe to once my contract with Singnet expires. Crap speed, crap customer service, now crap customer privacy policy too.
I think this just proves that litigation is the only way to beat these crappy ISPs into submission. Heaven forbids such a litigatious society.
That said, I’m also considering terminating my Singnet connection, given the above mentioned fact. I’m so not considering paying the termination fee, for the above mentioned reason: either they terminate me for free, or I can send a lawyer to court to do this.
(BTW, it seemed to me that litigations are the way to go in the future of Singapore. GG, everybody.)
Also the whole BayTSP situation sounds a bit fishy. Did Odex in fact pay BayTSP to track down downloaders? If they did why didn’t they produce an affidavit from the guy at BayTSP?
No matter how you look at it, odex is finished for real.
If odex were to win the pacnet case, it would keep on sending fine letters to anime downloaders and effectively stunt the growth of anime community in singapore. More people would despise odex. Which would all reflect in odex’s sales.
If odex were to lose the case, this means odex possess neither legal means nor credibility in the first place to make downloaders pay up the fine. One can expect to see no ebbing in anime downloads, in fact it’s likely to rise. And the tarnished image of odex would forever be engraved in the mind of anime community and singaporean citizens alike. No one’s going to buy their products.
this piqued me quite alot.. hearing singnet just gave up the list easily the other time… nao pacnet proved that they do value customer privacy i think i’d want to switch ISPs…
At the end of the day, BayTSP (and probably other similar companies) are sending DMCA notices which claim that they detected a user uploading and downloading copyrighted files. This is a lie. They didn’t catch the user in the act of downloading. A lying tracker, a peer using peer exchange, hostile web page, or buggy BitTorrent client could all result in a false DMCA notice.
If your ISP forwards a DMCA notice from these guys, point them here. This research suggests that they have no evidence of wrong-doing. If ISPs learn that the folks sending them DMCA notices are not being completely honest, they may be willing to reconsider their position about how they respond to the notices. The people I work with at Carnegie Mellon seemed willing to reevaluate their policies given this evidence. I believe that ISPs should require that any peer-to-peer related DMCA notice include a statement regarding exactly what evidence of sharing was found. Ideally, the notice should contain evidence that could be corroborated with log files (for example, “we found that the client at 123.1.2.3 uploaded 1 MB of file X to 4.3.2.1”. The ISP may be able to check that there was 1 MB of traffic between these two clients).
A piece of good news for anybody who has gotten a bittorrent related notice from BayTSP: it doesn’t seem like a studio could do much in terms of court action with the evidence BayTSP gives them.
For the technically minded, I though I’d share some observations of the behavior of BayTSP’s clients
BayTSP’s clients don’t don’t accept incoming connections, only send outgoing ones. I wonder what exactly this is for.
Some of the BayTSP clients claim to be using Azureus (and support Azureus extensions), while others run libtorrent. I’m not sure why they are doing this
When BayTSP’s clients connect to a BT user, they claim to not have downloaded any of the file, but refuse uploads. Not only does this behavior not make any sense for an actual user, but it seems like BayTSP would want to accept data, which might provide proof of infringement.
Some of the IP ranges I noticed coming from BayTSP were: 154.37.66.xx, 63.216.76.xx, 216.133.221.xx. Sometimes, they make themselves really obvious on the tracker. For example, 154.37.66.xx and 63.216.76.xx will send 10 clients to the same tracker all claiming to listen on port 12320. Maybe trackers should block these folks
http://bmaurer.blogspot.com/2007/02/big-media-dmca-notices-guilty-until.html
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Any way do odex obtain copy right of this animes to sue end users like to that we are actually infriging their copy right? what i heard that is they only have gundam seed. They cant just go around sueing people who is downloading animes
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This would have been a good sign, even as we had not anticipated to find quite
definitely fine gold inside stone. His fee was 110 guineas,
understanding that of the hotelkeeper was 30 guineas.
Neighbours were quite few, where there were only three other women living
in the neighbourhood – all lived either in bark huts or tents using young children.