Well just one more community of people will hate you.

Stephen sing, although there are many people that download fansubs here, i does not mean that they don’t buy the DVDs. Its just that they don’t buy YOUR merchandise because it is damm lousy. People rather spend $60 to $100 to buy better quality dvd boxsets from parallel importers than from YOU and some more they get the latest titles so much faster. If ou ask me to wait 1 year for the latest anime then i can tell you forget it.

About the things you said in the newspaper articles well, you say what you are doing is doing the anime market here a favor and that it is to prevent or revive the anime market here. Well all these is to revive YOUR MARKET not the anime fan’s. You say its bad PR and stuff but at the end you said the crackdown must continue. You might as well say that at the top of the line to end the story because in the end you had said nothing.

I share sentiments will all anime fans here and well thanks to you many young kids are going to be traumatized by your $3000 to $5000 fines. COngrats you just created generation of people who won’t bother with anime or are too traumatized by your actions to go at it again.

I am appalled by the state of our privacy in Singapore as well.

In my heart, I have no choice but to agree that fansubs are illegal.

But it suddenly dawned on me that Singaporean anime fans are screwed… ‘cos unless your R1, R2 DVDs has gone through the Censorship Board, they are kind of illegal as well. So the point abt buying R1 DVDs from US are kind of moot and short of migrating to US or Japan to get our anime fix, us fans can start picking up a new hobby. DOTA anyone?

What made them go hard after the illegal downloaders now than before is becos they found that their earnings dropped! It does not matter they may have other ways to earn their profits.. but is a matter of whether they could have earned more without illegal downloaders. For example, they could have earned $1000 if all 25 anime fans buy their DVD but becos of some illegal downloading anime, they lose 15 anime fans buying their DVDs. There is a lost of profits!

However, I dun think we can think like this so naively. It is also about copyright issues. Illegal downloading is not paying for what you are watching. It’s the same for songs, dramas, even computer softwares! Think in your own shoe if that happens.

A is not paying you for what you have painstakingly put in lotsa efforts to make… will you let him off?

Of course, I may be still naive here but we can’t blame ODEX solely for this matter.

Its a massive demand, 3k - More than a month salary. Too much to swallow in, even if its for damages made that cause them to have low sales. I guess its just how it works. I really wonder what internet is used for now a days - Downloading/chatting/quick info.

Those kids that were reacting like were most likely be the ones who got the letter from odex? + Not many people know what is license. Everything have to be taught all over again. I kinda realise that many people don’t know about copyrights and about this anime thing. The problem !! is people are uploading them so frequently and it is “normal” to download it because it is there “for you “. Soon, people would think “Is it wrong to get it for free?”. Sueing those who sub them makes more sense but again, its just for the sake of better subtitle.

It is not safe to download but it do not really make sense that sales will go up to normal rate - That is how i feel for anime industry.

All i know is, everything is expensive. Even the consequences.

Piracy is indeed wrong and we ought to protect intellectual property in singapore or anywhere else in the world. but the method odex used to enforce this is really questionable. unlike previous cases involving Mp3 (RIAA) or movie, ppl are served with a warning first. If they continue with their act and get caught, i only wish they were served a heavy fine. but for the odex saga, no warning was issued. “Fine” or a better term settlement fees of 3k to 5k were demanded straight away. as u can see from numerous threads, most ppl dun even know wat are licensed wat are not and there are kids who think copyright is a word plucked out from a science fiction book. To a lot of anime fans out there, this indeed feel like a massacre.

hope the anime fans can show their unity and more imptly maturity and show to Odex tt they are indeed repentant and deserve a 2nd chance.

Company has the legal high ground regardless, that doesn;t mean that the consumers will simply flock to them, even IF they were the only ones distributing in SEA. Even more so, because of their poor quality goods, that look like a slipshot copypaste from china, and the high prices. (Contrary to claims of lowering the price as far as they can go, they are retailing in most shops from between $24-29.90 per box, as the 10 bucks per 13 episode box is simply a promotion that is done at “roadshows”) Consumers are a fickle lot, and if the quality is bad, can we blame them for going after the best alternative? I’m not questioning the legality of downloading from P2P, but you must take into account that to many, this is simply a alternative, and they would still buy the originals to support the series. After all, Odex produces crap, Imports are slashed to ribbons by the censors (and at times are confiscated without so much as a “by your leave”), price nonwithstanding.

I know it sounds like i’m siding the anime community, but if you think about it, it’s oth sides that have faults. ODex, for it’s poor service, and the anime fans for not supporting the series further by buying originals (although this can also be contested, considering high prices and avilability.)

I believe that Odex’s Sales losses are not completely because of the downloaders. Heck, most of the blame lies with their products, leading to consumers finding alternatives. however, the company seems to have decided to bury it’s head in the sand (or in this case, shooting themselves in the L.J seems more appropriate.) by cracking down on downloaders rather then improving their products and visibility.

Kids will be kids, they are immature, and need to be taught proper respect. However, Stephen Sing apparently has his mind somewhere back in his teens, if looking at the gloating he did. Just because he has the legal right to prosecute, doesn;t mean he gets to lord it over us. Yet he did, and now he’s paying for it with the company’s bad PR, death threats against his family etc. i can;t exactly blame the kids, but the threats are definately over the line. and after that news report of his gloats, i can hardly blame the kids for reacting like this either.

Issues like IP, are hard to tackle mainly because of several factors.. User Population, Quality(in Odex’s Case), Privacy Issues from ISPs( Such as in the U.S, europe, and until recently, Singapore. In short, tackling online piracy is like having a mountain of laundry that keeps piling up no matter how fast u wash it.

@A Chicken passeth: I guess this is one of the things in terms of laws that protects the corporate world becaus eventually, it is the companies that drives the economies. I guess morally, ODEX is on the slide but using it from a macro level, I am not too sure.\

I also believe that the quality has to really improve, but I also believe that it becomes a huge chicken and egg question. Even if they do improve now, no one is there to show that it has really improved. I feel that despite the extremely bad PR coverage of the issue and the fact that it can be done much better, there’s really enough flaming, sulking and figure out collectively how to improve the situation.

@sparrowhawk: I believe a pro active attitude from the anime bloggers to help advertise, evaluate and review the products in an objective light will help the company to first address the problem of poor subbing and the likes.

To add, I am sure that they will soon recognize this to be a well-intended attempt to solve the rampant downloading but bad piece of PR in the way they did it.

@Bye my love: I believe it is the sheer cost that merely warning people will do absolutely nothing. If you are warned by someone to simply not download anything, I think most of us will probably ignore the order. It is extremely strong handed, and I don’t like it. I do not think it is morally correct also to say that the downloading does have some implications in terms of profits, though it requires some research on the extent of it.

To add, researchers find it hard with this topic because it is always hard to have a measurement on the operationalization of piracy on the whole, as well as the requirements of finding all the constants to test these two factors in an accurate manner.

@Aeigoter: The gloating part is definitely not nice, but the replies by the forum kids are equally atrocious.

@Masterkof: I cannot really say about the moral integrity of the company as a whole after the statement, even though I am less proud of the anime community with the vehemous flaming. If we call him horrible, we are perhaps equally so by returning the fire (even if anyone joked it is merely NATO). Will someone ever know that a death threat is true or false when he knows there are so many sentiments against a certain person?

@Mushi: It is supposedly a note as I have seen before, but I am not taking any part of it as a whole conspiracy. I do not think it is so, but merely a global confusion over piracy.