How is that good news? Its just a mere distraction.
Odex failed :-
1. As a distributor to release their licensed anime quick enough
for the anime fans here, and when the anime fans are tired of
waiting and go for fansubs, they decide to sue them. This is the
internet age. If you can't keep up, you get kicked out. Fansubs are
faster and apparently are of better quality.
2. To assure the quality of their subbing, and video standards. No
Singaporean wants to buy sub-standard products when better ones are
available cheaply, and in this case FREELY.
From a consumer point of view, he is being sued because he sought
an alternative due to the lack of availability of the product he
desires, and finally when the product is out, it is of inferior
quality.
They ought to be grateful that those consumers who bought their
crappy products didn't make any reports to CASE about it.
Finally, I sincerely doubt the court will rule in favor of
releasing the identities of the PacNet subscribers. I think one of
the Straits Times columnist made it quite clear that, Odex, or
whoever, is able to come up with concrete proof, that those
individuals have "illegally" downloaded some licensed material of
THEIRS, then the court will order PacNet to hand over the names of
the subscribers behind the IP. Again, IP addresses cannot pin point
an individual, especially in this wireless-rampant
environment.
If for some reason (eg. wireless network broken into), the names
were given to Odex, and the subscribers were NOT responsible for
the downloads, then the Privacy of the subscribers would have been
breached unfairly.
IMO If this happened before the advent of wireless networks, Odex
could get away with it. Having the IP address roughly narrows it to
one household. And the subscriber would have to be somewhat
responsible.
But with wireless networks, its not narrowing down the "illegal"
downloader to 1 house hold, but possibly, a few clusters of
households. It would be unfair to burden the subscriber when
home-wireless network equipment are insecure when compared to
industry equipment.
