Odex stands firm on pursuing illegal downloaders of anime
By Jermyn Chow
ANIME distributor Odex is standing firm on its stance to pursue
illegal downloaders.
Clarifying its position in a media conference on Thursday, the
company even brought in the muscle of anime copyright holders from
Japan to back its case.
Odex said it had to take legal action because of the large numbers
of illegal downloaders of the Japanese anime titles it brought
in.
The company revealed that over 483,000 illegal downloads had been
made here over the past 10 months alone - making Singapore 10th on
the list of countries worldwide with the most illegal anime
downloaders.
Compounding the problem - 59 per cent of households here have
high-speed broadband access.
So Singapore has the highest percentage of anime downloads per
capita, far ahead of countries like the United States, Australia
and Hong Kong.
Odex's aim, said its managing director Peter Go, is to bring down
the number of illegal downloads to about 85 per cent.
Odex authorised to act on behalf of copyright holders
To further bolster its case, Odex brought in representatives of
four Japanese studios, which own the copyrights of blockbuster
series like Naruto, Dragonball, Tsubasa Chronicles, and Romeo and
Juliet.
The representatives told reporters through an interpreter, that
they support Odex's legal action.
All four studios had in fact issued authorisation letters for Odex
to act on their behalf, before the company went to the
courts.
Said Mr Yukio Kawasaki, manager of TV Tokyo Corpration: 'If there
is a necessity from the courts of Singapore requiring us to come
down (physically), then we will come.'
The studios appealed to anime fans to stick to original
copies.
Appealing court orders
Odex is currently in the midst of appealing to get a court order
which will force Pacific Internet to supply the names of illegal
downloaders using its service. A judge had turned down its request
last Thursday (Aug 23).
To date, Odex has sent out 300 letters, from the 1,000 Internet
Protocol (IP) addresses that SingTel had provided. An IP address is
a string of numbers that can identify a user, although web
addresses are commonly shared here.
StarHub has also been served with a court order to provide Odex
with another 100 ISP addresses.
The Odex fracas has led to fervent online chatter with some anime
fans vilifying Odex and others voicing outrage over the court
orders forcing Internet Service Providers to reveal the names of
their subscribers.
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