Taken from RIUVA. So Odex has finally done it. Singapore’s anime community is doomed. Oh shit. So anyway some poor guy probably wet his pants after receiving this letter.
WTF zOMG H4X!
BTW the organization mentioned in the letter AVPAS (Anti-Piracy Association of Singapore) is similar to the RIAA/RIAS except that Odex appears to be the sole active member. The organization has obtained authorizations from various Japanese studios to represent their rights for all their copyrighted works, even those that are not licensed by Odex for distribution in Singapore. The full list of titles can be found on their website.
Read on for my thoughts.
That said, I am very, very curious as to how Odex, a private entity, managed to obtain personal data from the ISPs based on purely circumstantial evidences. As far as I can see from the AVPAS member list, there is zero indication that it is anything but a private organization. It is related to neither the police nor the relevant government agencies. Therefore, it is the anime equivalent of the RIAA.
However, RIAA, as mighty and powerful as it appears to be, is not able to obtain any personal information from American ISPs directly. It has to do it through the court. That means that it has to first start the legal procedures before the court issues a subpoena that forces the ISP to reveal the identity of the defender and summons the person to court. The defenders in these lawsuits are given the generic name “John Doe” because their names are undisclosed by their ISPs until after the court subpoena. In such cases, the first letter received by the poor sob should be from his own ISP informing him of the existence of such a subpoena for his identity.
The above letter is addressed to the person himself and was sent directly by Odex. This means that Odex, without first going through any legal proceedings, is able to obtain personal information directly from the ISPs using only the IP address. That is insane if you consider the amount of invasive power that has been put into the hands of private company and the potential for abuse by individuals with their personal agendas.
You know, there’s a certain someone whom I really hate on a certain forum. I will fake produce a record of his IP address illegally torrenting a picture that I once drew during a particularly boring physics lecture. I shall then e-mail this “proof” to Singnet and ask for this person’s home address. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll go spend a few bucks to register a company to make the request seem more legitimate…
Of course Odex is a legitimate company that is trying to protect its rights under the current intellectual property rights law (flawed as it may be). But my point is that if a private entity can obtain such information without the prior knowledge of the people involved and without the authority of the court, then what exactly in our legal system is protecting our privacy from abuse by some unscrupulous characters? And if such protection of personal privacy does indeed exist, what exactly allows Odex to bypass it?
Then again, I’m not well-versed with the local legal system. Maybe our privacy laws are really that screwed up. Oh well.
Read this excellent explanation of the “RIAA vs. John Doe” lawsuits, particularly the sections on “How the RIAA identifies the people they sue” and “The Lawsuit Begins”, and compare it to what Odex is apparently authorized to do. Doesn’t RIAA look like the better alternative?
So what are your remaining options for your weekly anime fix?
- Direct download sites
- Obscure Chinese Bittorrent trackers
- XDCC bots on IRC
- Download raws off Winny/Share
- Move to Japan
- Find a job at Odex
Alternatively, find a safer hobby like playing pirated computer games or serial jaywalking.
Regarding privacy, from Starhub: “We may use your personal information for the purposes of: planning, provisioning and billing for services; managing bad debt and preventing fraud; facilitating interconnection and inter-operability between service providers; rendering assistance to law enforcement, governmental or regulatory agencies; or complying with any applicable laws or any order of court.”
Does this mean….
if anyone here be willing to actually call to singnet and starhub to check whether they are working with odex, things will be much clearer, coz so far we are only assuming so… and hopefully if we find out that they are not… we can question ODEX on medium they get the addresses from…
and of course the issue on privacy rights
@ h (345): Yup. I did mention that the particular “Intent to commit a felony” was from the Penal Code. Therefore it applies IF they are trying to sue you for attempting to download. That was a post with regard to the issue raised that it is not possible to sue someone for clicking on many downloads, even if downloads never ever completed. The Penal Code comes into play at this point as one can be sued for attempting to commit a felony.
Oh and if I forgot to mention, sorry, can’t be bothered to check if my posts did or didn’t mention, most of what I mentioned regarding the reluctance to sue was the trouble Odex would have to go to, that is really what keeps them from actually attempting to sue as at the moment (and hopefully forever).
@ h: sorry, saw that I wasn’t very clear. Yes, copyright infringement isn’t covered by the Penal Code.
@Anonymous (346): Yes, my other non-anime/jdorama torrents have been lagging like hell. If they can’t provide “Double the speed”, then don’t do it.
@ J (352): Well I do know from one of the forums that the guy DID call singnet, who claimed complete ignorance of how the information was obtained. However, you can’t always trust all the information you get in forums.
Hmm? Odex can be any person posing as a peer in BT, how would you know who to not connect to?
Ok, I do realise I may be making a stupid statement here because of a lack ok knowledge of BT, so feel free to correct me.
Ah crap, I read wrongly. Pardon my earlier message.
Said it once elsewhere, will say it again here:
DO NOT USE SINGNET. Especially if you are an leecher.
Starhub is the lesser of the two evils.
Also, remember to use a good BT client and enable protocol encryption.
In addition, if you stick to downloading unlicensed anime from Animesuki or trackers like scarywater, you’ll be fine. The law shouldn’t touch you.
Finally learn to leech from irc. XDCC bots are great.
—–
PS: Moving to Japan (i.e choice #5) seems like a good idea. No prize guessing where those high quality raws came from. If you know Japanese, you won’t be watching subs and you’ll support the good anime (and benefit the creators and studio directly) by buying R2 DVDs. No money for the litigious bastards of anime subbing companies and distributors!
PPS: Off topic, but the Singapore government is best summarised as primarily a self-serving corporate police state siding with big businesses (the government IS a big business itself) with minimal regard to personal and civil liberties. You may or may not agree but I honestly think my observation is spot on. Plenty of Singapore-related political and social forums online if you want to discuss more about it.
But still. when using singnet, whether you download your anime (licensed/unlicensed) through xdcc or ddl, there is still a possibility that you will get caught right? since bt now is not an option.
Am i right to say that?
does this apply to mainly bleach?
what about other ‘lesser known’ licensed anime?
i’m not using singnet, thankfully.
R: Don’t bet on it.
salik: BT is not an option precisely because its easy to catch. Direct connection P2P like xdcc or DDL is harder.
hidarkmirage!: Could you elaborate on why using scarywater/Animesuki trackers are safe?
but from one of the above comments made by ‘suffocated’, it still may be a possibility thta the singnet will comply to the law and see if we gt dl or something right?
@Farinelli – It’s not really a matter of ‘safe’, more so as scarywater tracker hosts and Animesuki lists only unlicensed anime, so whatever you download from there the IP legal vultures can’t lay a finger on you.
So, to rephrase and summarise everything – if you are personally bothered/threatened by legal antics like what Odex did, follow my advice listed in the previous post, and stick to downloading unlicensed anime.
I’m neither threatened, nor bothered. I can download my new animes licensed or unlicensed. I can watch raws. And of course I can certainly get the DVDs. But keep up with such fascist legal antics and we can jolly well vote with our wallets.
@hidarkmirage!
don’t think scarywater is safe just because it hosts unlicensed anime. true, it is unlicensed, but only IN AMERICA, NOT SINGAPORE. so if you really want to download unlicensed anime, i suggest you do find the “list” of licensed stuff which Odex is withholding from the public.
if anyone is still thinking of downloading, i suggest going old school and use XDCC. its much safer than BT.
Alt options:
There are a LOT of Direct Dll sites and you can find just about everything that is newly released on it. Watch and Shift+Del sounds pretty safe.
Also, there is YouTube, nicco and veoh. Veoh is similar to the other two, but you can also download your anime to your computer and watch it in HQ.
Or you could join livejournal, and join some community like ‘anime_downloads’ or ‘anime_uploads’ that ups anime on servers like MegaUpload, SendSpace, GigeShare…
And finally, possibly join some forum that has no qualms uploading anime. I can reccommend aarinfantasy here – it’s mainly for yaoi, but people there share anything that contains bishonen and isn’t too obviously licensed.
Unistall your torrent program and give them up. There are MANY options that are both faster and less easy to track.
Talk about bad luck, my mum got stuck with such a letter.. =_= And since, being from the “brainwashed” generation, she contacted them… and yes theres that bloody fine to be paid. (she even told me that i should fork out the 9.95 if i’m that desperate to watch anime… =_=) I’d loved to have been able to go there to give my five cents worth (although i’d probably have heaped more shit into the flame) but i’m currently overseas – so.. too bad for that.
With regards to what negativzero said, yes animesuki and scarywater host titles that are licenced in America and not in Singapore but what else can we do? Does anyone see a page listing the titles that have been licenced here? A quick lookup at anime news network about two weeks ago when the shit fell gave me like 4-5 titles that were licenced by odex. And BOY were they obscure. I mean, without any guidelines avaliable as to whats licenced or not in Singapore theres only so much we can do. Also as pointed out somewhere way up front… yes they have a page of licenced stuff now… but when was that page created? And when did they start catching people? Thus using animesuki, ann etc as a guide, at the time of my obtaining the animes i was caught for i wasn’t exactly infringing any copyright rules (except those of the creators).
Furthermore, hadn’t xdcc downloads (via irc) already become illegal in singapore?
Thats what i was told the last time i stuck my head out before this entire fiasco.
On a random aside, i didn’t get to finish my downloads… the speed was pure rubbish… and the caught me for the same stuff a couple of times.. so i guess it rules out the intent part… as long as u have been caught with the damn torrent you’re stuck.
As for s****l being stumped and unaware, how likely do you think the chances of this beng the case? Hell they even get the NIRC number of the suscriber… unless ODEX somehow managed to hack into the ISPs database how’d they get this information? It’s most likely that the guys in the s****l boardroom are aware of Odex obtaining and using data to nab the guys like us. If you ask me, i think they too are getting a cut from the monies odex obtains, but thats just me and my general dislike of most things singapore.
Thats my few cents worth, it’s probaby really one sided being one of the poor sods… but i JUST had to air them…
To DM and the rest of you guys who actually sent your comments to ST i salute you, me i’ll just remain in my closet in complain, guess i’m a brainwashed singaporean too. Damn…
PS. does anyone know if the bt client you’re using actually affects your chances of being caught? My instances only came up after i switched clients from bitcomet to azureus…
@negativezero: my sentiments. and to add on, they can always pull a cheap trick on you and say for example, well we licensed Lucky Star, we just didn’t announce it. Didn’t have to ;P
If you want to look on the bright side, dlding episode by episode from xdcc gives you more sense of accomplishment than torrenting a huge-ass file for two weeks. :D
@salik: possible. then whoever gets it is shit outta luck that’s all i can say. :/
I feel that this is a classical example of ‘Things aren’t simply just in black and white’.
There are Anime Fans who will buy the original products after checking out the fansubs and there will also be people who would not bother supporting the originals after downloading the fansub.
Odex’s stand in that Fansubs are an illegal existence is correct but they have made a wrong approach in stating their point (The Letters). As everyone is aware, the letters has only resulted in the Singapore Anime Community responding with a volley of messages comprising of selfish complains, constructive criticism and debatable arguments. I do not see any wisdom in the messy situation that is currently in the air.
It is an undeniable fact that fansub is a beneficial and free source of publicity for the distributors. Think of it like a trailer. The actions of Odex has only done damage to their reputation. More to add on, most Anime Fans feel that Odex is not in the right position to impose such a thing, in an ethical way of course (Like the Sergeant who is always scolding you for not putting effort in the morning runs, but he himself is a bloody slacker).
Perhaps someone else will have better ideas or think I am a bit too naive. But I feel that Odex ought to promote the original products with more indirect strategies rather than hurting their own customers (the anime fans). Promoting better public awareness, improving customer service and product quality would be better ways to minimise the inevitable damage that fansubs would brings. I am sure MOST consumers would have a certain pride in possessing the original and well presented collection of an anime series rather than just the fansubs.
Fansubs, the local distributors, anime fans and those who download and do not support the original products… They are all part of this equation that forms the Anime Community. It is impossible to root out any of these factors in this equation. Fansubs and leechers will always be there to stay. The letters will not only fail to eliminate fansub downloading, it will also create defiance in the very group of people that are supposed to be their loyal customers (for it is human nature to resist control. i.e to say ‘Buay Song’). There is no instant solution in changing the mindset of people to ‘Support the Original’ as everyone can see in the current situation.
Odex, although their purpose in imposing such letters are still dubious, is correct in a sense. Apparently they joined a Prom Night in a halloween dress rather than a tuxedo. Sometimes I pity them because maybe they are obliged to do so since it is obvious of the harm it will have on them.
I think what I have said might have been repeated many a times but I wanted to say my part. Do pardon my instrusion ya?
so in conclusion, dl through xdcc better or through ddl?
I’m confused by the comments….
@confuser:
Best is dun dl at all….u dun reallly wanna get the letter…dun u?
haha… Guess that was the best answer. Cause I myself also wanna dl anime like death note which it is gonna be finish soon…
Get from your friends who dl la. :P Always good to have a torrenter as your friend. :D
Man I give evil advice…
@Farinelli: Lol… sabo ur friend… why not…
Btw… does this mean xdcc is still ok in Singapore?? little befuddled on that…
x_X
hi all… juz a qn, i’m more into d/l-ing chinese subs to the english ones… does that mean i can continue d/l-ing them? even those that are already licenced by them?
does odex even do chinese subs at all? cos it’s been a long time since i’ve bought anything from them (since they’re all eng subs) and i’m not sure if wat they’re instigating applies to chinese subs too.
of course, worst come to worse, i could always d/l raws and try interpreting it with my less than perfect japanese… mayb it could improve my japanese language much faster too…
er…. it should be ok to d/l raws right?
Raws and fansubs are technically illegal.
Spanish fansubs are illegal too.
Hope that answers your question.
The irony is then, if i download porn and hentai, I will be safer then when I was downloading anime.
I dont know about you, but the is totally upside down.
ODEX’s back at their plagiarizing best again. This time they lifted Shinsen’s Jigoku Shoujo word for word. Don’t believe me? Go get episode 4, then watch it. Then watch tonight’s (12 June, 2007) broadcast at 11pm.
Let just face it, downloading license anime is after all infringement of copyrights, therefore illegal, period. If you are caught doing it, well then it is too late. Deal with it. If u are not yet caught, then wise up. Time to switch to anonymous P2P such as Ants or i2P. Downside is, the community on it isn’t as marture as Bit torrent.But with RIAA and MPAA shitty crack down scheme, bit torrent isn’t safe anymore, esp in a country where personal privacy account to almost nothing.
If given more choice, one might not need to DL via fansub. Between the crap been offer and the other not so ethical mean, I wasn’t surprise why most ppl choose the latter. Oh and beside it is free…. 7 out of thousand caught, what are the chance that I am the 7? DO the math.
If the cost of buying is low and quality is good, I wont even bother sitting on the computer downloading and watching it on a tiny screen.
perhaps odex IS the fansubber too. *muahaha*
im actually one of those who would never really have become an anime fan (a mild one but still a fan) if it weren’t for fansubs. it’s because of fansubs that i had subscribed to animax. but the irritating english dubbs soon got on my nerves.
and so since the recent hoo haas about copyright, illegal funsubs, yada yada i’ve watched much less anime. only occasionally on youtube. however i still have a great interest in anime music. and i am willing to buy OSTs or other albums if only it were easily available in Singapore. i am aware of obtaining cds online but im unaware of the procedures and i don’t have a credit card. (parents wouldnt let me buy over the net either -_-“)
anyone know of any good place to buy such CDs?
Could we make noise about the fansub lifting thing?
@|c#^sNoW : That’s a huge insult to Shinen-Subs. And its impossible anyways.
Anyway thanks for the heads up, I think I will get my digi-cam handy the next time Jigoku Shoujo is shown.
I will just do things the Spore way, spread the word, and urge pple NOT to buy ODEX’s products.
Just keep bad mouthing them and their high handed tactics, and we will see who finally loses out in the end.
Lets see whether pple will like it, to see their privacy invaded over such a matter.
If they can fine us over such an issue, what is they for them to do the same for pple downloading porn or hentai?
As mentioned above by quite a number of other people other than me, what we DO want is a WIN-WIN situation. Give them a chance. No offense ShivKite, but yes, Singaporean way. But isn’t “Wait and See” part of our creed too after all. Depends on which part of the spectrum you want to be on then…
don’t mean insult the win-win theory Ekard, but how often in Singapore has there been a win-win situation?
Especially in such situations?
I generally get the impression that whatever the powers that be cant solve, they simply sweep under the rug and wait for people to forget about it.
I kinda think thats how this things gonna end up going too…
As for the fansub lifting thing… is it possible to like umm.. inform the guys at shinsen or anything? You mean theres NOTHING that can be done?
Thats unethical… :(
We are all complain kings too, remember? So even for something as “minor” as this, I will complain to all my kakis.
I am just working on word of mouth at the moment. Flyers would be nice too.
Sorry Odex but I was thinking of supporting the anime industry in Singapore. I previously didn’t and have regretted doing so. Now, you won’t get a single cent from me, no matter what amends you make. Furthermore, what guarantee do I have that the other anime companies in Singapore won’t follow suit?
In America, the anime companies have communication with the fansubbers and those who download the fansub episodes.
In Singapore, you throw the fans into a den of lions to repay them.
What a world of difference.
And since a number have stopped watching anime for good, I guess the anime studios won’t get any of their money at all. Therefore, I urge everyone to follow suit: stop downloading and watching fansubbed anime. Let’s see how long the Singapore anime industry will survive then.
@Dee That won’t work. Just spread the word, to tell pple to avoid ODEX’s products as much as possible. Tell them about their high handed tactics and the way they do things.
By the way, take heart. I spoken to a few “pirates” here. They are in favour of bringing in “fansubbed” anime from across the causeway for sale. (Free to download, high quality subbing, what more can you ask for?)
As long as there is an active market for it, they would be more then happy to earn extra $$$$. Of course if this does take off, they will have ODEX to thank for it.
Me? I rather pay peanuts for a “Pirated” product whose quality of work is so much better then what the so called “Original” can leave.
Guess “Odex” is just after money after all huh?
They say that they are the “hands” of “Justice”. But to me, they are no different from the ruffians and scoundrels who dress in a suit and wield a strong political hammer for their own selfish ends.
Their words sound nice, but hold daggers underneath. The epitome of “Hypocrisy” deathly pales in comparision when used to describe people of their ilk.
I bet that the people who are suing, also have relatives who are the doing a similar thing. Why don’t they keep their own affairs clean first, before they start preaching to others?
To anyone who keep insisting they can’t prove you downloaded the animes. All trackers show the people seeding (people who have the full copy of the anime) with a few simple click.
I do not think it is the best to path to employ a RIAA-like tactic, but they are in the rights to protect their interests.
@bummerout: We do agree that we see a unique case here don’t we. Aren’t Singaporeans well known for being obedient? The fact that we complain and complain before we quiet down and shut up and take what we’re given is kind of well known. But we do see that we are different this time round don’t we? So shouldn’t there be something different this time either? In the meantime, ddl friends…
so direct dl will be the safest for the time being right ?
Screw ODEX. Support Bandai:
http://ckwiz.blogspot.com/2007/06/my-r1-haruhi-dvds-my-room-manga-stash.html
@dKiWi: oops i didnt noe its shinsen subs..
anw, i think e way sg companies do things r heading for doom..keep everyone updated..gd luck!
I think everything that can be said on this topic has already been said… at least 5 times. So yeah, I’m locking the comments.
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