No more backlogged letters from Odex
According to a forum post by Stephen Sing, as of today (3rd September) no more backlogged letters will be sent out. Odex will not take legal action against you with old evidence. If you stop downloading from today, you are guaranteed, by the man himself, not to get Odex’ed ever.
Original thread on Odex forums:
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).
Apparently an official statement will be released soon, but I think a forum post from xysing is as good as any official statement. I guess they have finally recovered their fees. Well that’s that for BitTorrenting anime I guess. I shall make do with Nico Nico Video.
On another note, I just finished rewatching all five seasons of Futurama. Good stuff.
September 3rd, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Technically Odex didn’t sue them… they just sent them pre-litigation letters. Woe to those who actually paid though.
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:08 pm
I sincerely hope that Pacnet to get a fighting chance in this one.
Meanwhile I am already searching for alternatives. Better to start doing it now before i return to SG end of the year.
So far http://www.anitube.net is quite promising. New, but promising.
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:11 pm
After their high handed method backfired on them, now they changed tack and says “In the name of god, stop downloading”.
1. Do they even have they proper clearance to sue in the first place? As a company, their interest is in profits. Who authorised them to act as gods?
2. Even if TV ToKyo, Gonzo, Media Station and Toei gives them the exclusive distro rights, what about the rest of the companies?
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Originally Posted by xysing
No, no backlog letters applied to all users, it has nothing to do with the ISPs you use.
Like I say, can’t discuss much about it, but we will in time.
Just remember that as long as you stop downloading now, regardless of what ISP you’re using, there will be no letters knocking at your door (not from us anyway)
(o.o)
This post was made by SS later in the same thread regarding no more backlog. Now watch those last words in brackets. He practically means Odex won’t pursue those who stop today, but original copyright holders or AVPAS (same entity here) may do it. So don’t get too happy yet. Link: http://www.odex.com.sg/forums/viewtopic.php?t=97&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
Trackback from
THAT Animeblog » ODEX’s reprieve for anime downloaders in SingaporeSeptember 3rd, 2007 at 9:40 pm
[...] those who are still not in the know (from TJ and Darkmirage), this forum post in ODEX’s community forum seems to promise much for all. I will have to [...]
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:46 pm
oh yaay!! Reading from different forums and found out
that now more than half of the odex haters are odex
lovers now! It seems to me that they feel safe…
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:15 pm
so it only apply to ANIME? what about other kinds of file? like Mangas, Movies, Dramas or anything else except anime? i just want to make sure. lol
September 4th, 2007 at 12:07 am
I’ve never realized that Singapore had such a large community of forums or bloggers. I must have been blind. Anyway, I digress.
I’ve spent quite some money on the anime/manga industry but I have to admit most of them have been spent on getting the mangas themselves and virtually none for the animes. I have to praise Chuang Yi for the quality of their releases nowadays. Their older releases were just horrible but at least they’ve learnt. Odex ought to learn from them.
The reasons why I don’t spend on anime products are simple: too expensive and of horrible quality. I have a free Odex One Piece VCD from one of the volumes of One Piece and it sucked and I doubt I’ve ever gotten anything from Odex ever since. Even my American friend who watched a bit of that said it was worse than 4Kids dub. It’s not easy to sink to that level.
I had a very bad impression of Odex at the start of this saga but after reading this post, I think we should cut them some slack and give them that one tiny chance to turn back. If their quality improves (the first step would be to dump the VCDs), they’ll have my money. Otherwise, I’d probably just stick to manga and forget about the animation.
Just my two cents.
September 4th, 2007 at 12:32 am
I just hope that their quality will shoot up though
September 4th, 2007 at 1:13 am
Their first step would be to dump censorship. Thats the main gripe of the more hardcore fans.
September 4th, 2007 at 3:15 am
The first step should be to close down forums where less than 50 percent of the posts are written in proper English. In the name of the “Speak Good English Campaign” of course, just like how Hokkien TV was wiped off the air back when linguistic homogeneity was desired.
September 4th, 2007 at 6:47 am
Fair enough. Maybe it’s a cynical marketing ploy to make us buy. Who cares? Now I may consider buying some Odex after all. I’ll see whether the quality is as lousy as some others say.
September 4th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Why is everyone falling for this?? The result of the appeal isn’t out yet and now XYSing is speaking as if he has full authority and the evidence to bring downloaders to court. Those are just honeyed words with lots of chili hiding inside. We should refrain from making uninformed decisions regarding his “ultimatum” until the appeal is over. Then we will know whether XYSing has the “right” or should I say “power” to follow through this declaration of his.
September 4th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Afterall, from what i think, if they still cannot bring copyright holders to pacnet court case, they have no chance of winning since sing already mention that letters will not be issued by them.
September 4th, 2007 at 9:37 am
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/209169.asp
This is lame…
Letter form Tan Lee Cheng, Senior Asst Director (Film Standards), Board of Film Censors
We refer to the article “Japanese anime firms close ranks with Odex” (Aug 31).
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Mr Peter Go, managing director of Odex, is said to have commented that the subtitles of some of his anime series had to be tweaked to conform to the Board of Film Censors’ (BFC) requirements.
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This statement is not correct and the BFC would like to take this opportunity to clarify its position.
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Subtitles are usually provided by distributors to reach out to a wider audience or to translate content that may be in a foreign language (example, Japanese anime). There are occasions when the quality of translation may be the cause of poor subtitling. This has nothing to do with the classification process but it is still worthwhile for distributors to address as consumers would expect to have accurate translation of purchased works.
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It is also the distributor’s responsibility to ensure that subtitles reflect the true content of an anime (that is, animation) especially its dialogue and commentary. If subtitles are not accurate, they can mislead the viewer and also make it difficult for the BFC to classify an anime accurately.
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The BFC has never asked for subtitles to be tweaked. We require that subtitles accurately reflect the content of a film or video so that we can classify the content accurately. Inaccurate subtitles also do no service to the community or to the young who may be misled into thinking that an anime is suitable for them when it could be meant for a higher age group.
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As the ratings for videos (including anime) range from G to M18, there is sufficient leeway to allow for the subtitling of mature content without subtitles having to be tweaked.
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We urge all distributors to translate and subtitle their content accurately so that they can provide an informative service to viewers. Letter form Tan Lee Cheng, Senior Asst Director (Film Standards), Board of Film Censors