[Kokanaden] LATEST! Odex’s compromise
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Loading ...Well, I was actually checking out this VR zone thread, where this particular user was complaining about our dear co-writer LianYL’s trolling and supposedly counter-productive comments, when I got distracted and started to read the Odex forums. This is what I stumbled upon in one of the threads:
———————————————–
Posted by xysing on Monday 3 September 2007 @ 12:57pm:
"No backlog letters will be sent.
No one will receive any more letters dated after August who addresses illegal filesharing with dated evidence.
Let me put it in a very clear and straightforward release to avoid any misunderstanding then.
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).
If you have any friends who still do not know the danger of filesharing, please let them know. Filesharing is illegal and it infringes the intellectual property of the copyright holders. Please do not download. "
Posted by xysing on Monday 3 September 2007 @1:07pm:
" Those letters whom have already been sent out, were sent out, not too sure about the date but it is definitely at least 3 weeks ago, those who should have received the letters, should have already received them. Barring super-delayed letters (because many of them has not yet got back to us, so we must assume that some have not collected the letters)
A better explanation will be :
Those who have STOPPED downloading after the date of Sep 03 will not get any letters from us. "
—————————————————
For those of you who have not yet grasped the gist of the statements above, basically, Mr Stephen Sing (who goes by the nickname of xysing on the Odex forums), has officially stated that (brace yourself)
NO ONE WLL RECEIVE ANY LETTERS WITH BACKDATED EVIDENCE, EFFECTIVE 3 SEPTEMBER 2007 (terms and conditions apply*)
*You can read the terms and conditions from what the statements I highlighted above, or from the thread itself.
For me, it seems that there is finally progress on this whole saga, which is great news. Previously, the whole argument was going around in concentric circles, especially those arguing on the freeloader vs real consumer (anime fan) issue with regard to "illegal filesharing". Now, this initiative would help to make things clearer: Those freeloaders hoping not to pay the price of the their previous "illegal" downloads (and as such creating such a din) will now stop doing so, and perhaps (a very big perhaps here) even stop downloading from now on. The real consumers are also given a reprieve, and Odex is hoping that through this, the real consumers will now give Odex another chance. A very significant compromise actually, which seems like a belated Cease and Desist letter being sent out. Too bad for those who had received the letter earlier though.
I haven’t given much thought to how impactful this piece of news will be, but what do you guys think? I’d really like to hear your views on this issue. Good? Bad?
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i can only said that i feel sad for those personel who pay the 3 to 5k fine
I guess that has to depend which hurt more: getting xedoed or not watching anime.
Before the statement xysing has given, downloaders can at least hide behind the mentality of them not doing the wrong act.
Now we can only stop watching anime and hope that somehow there is a court order or something that can show that odex is not the copyright holder of all anime.
Anyway xysing’s tone is still absurd. He seems to suggest that Odex owns all the copyright. Hopefully he can clear the ambiguity there and not use it to their advantage… …
Compromise?? After all that shit… it’s like pointing a gun at my head and saying “Alright, just give me the money now and I promise I won’t shoot. And next time don’t let me see your face again”
yeah. It appears that ODEX is handing out the olive branch. Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn out to be a fig leaf for something else.
Meanwhile, let’s wait and see what transpires. I hope there’s a workable solution that allows ODEX to back down without losing face, and for the anime-fan/otaku community to be free of molestation by legal threats.
Maybe Darkmirage survey works?
I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt for now. It seems to me from a few days of lurking on their forums that they are at least willing to answer to people’s queries and listen to suggestions.
Or at least, that’s what it seems like.
What’s making Odex step back?
Perhaps the sheep have been flocked to the right cause in a long long time.
What amused me, and still amuse me is how much attention the papers are putting onto this.
Either there are a good lot of anime watchers, or the papers are running out of salacious news to soup out.
Or there are more sinister reasons.
Hats off to those who had the moral courage to stand up against the madness. Either side of the fence that is.
Just to point out something thats rather amusing.
For the past few months. The edmwers has been complaining that odex are not interacting much enough with the community. And not allow enough transparency to this saga.
Well, so odex gave in and did so by answering several question that was consistenly being raised up.
And now, the edmwers are saying that odex is trying to hard to explain itself and they should just STFU.
So what say you?
[b]Originally Posted by xysing[/b]
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 [b](not from us anyway)[/b]
(o.o)
This post above made by him later in the same thread. Watch those last words in brackets. He practically means that Odex will not blacklog and send any letters to you on activities prior to Sep. 3rd today, but copyright holders or even AVPAS itself will take legal action instead. So be warned, that it’s not over yet.
Almost forgot, I provide the link to this post: http://www.odex.com.sg/forums/viewtopic.php?t=97&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15. Look for the 2.30pm post made by him.
Definately bad. If everyone follows, then it will strengthen the argument of law and weaken our already non-existant fair use acts.
My God havn’t you guys been following the news? The District Court has already ruled that Odex cannot sue.
You have don’t have to PAY A SINGLE CENT EVEN IF YOU GOT THE LETTER UNLESS YOU CONFESS AND SIGN THE DAMN AGREEMENT. THEY CAN’T TAKE YOU TO COURT BECAUSE THE COURT HAS REJECTED THEIR EVIDENCE ALREADY.
This isn’t a compromise, this is more like a surrender document. You think they would send this letter had they not been trashed in court by Pacnet? Hell no, they would have wanted to sue all 300 letters for every last drop. Now what they’re saying is in effect we admit as of now we have no way to actually suing people and benefiting a single cent from the case. So we are giving up sending more love letters and hope those other 200 who haven’t budged to pay up….even if our legal right to action and technical evidence has been rejected by the District Court.
I want VOD to come to SG and for the local aime industry to boom. However, we forgive them now, we will be encouraging every company to sue by proxy and start a flood of copyright suits.
We must support local companies to bring anime to Singapore. However, we sure as hell don’t want Odex to be the one, especially after they did this to us.
Good thing my computer crashed three weeks ago… I haven’t been downloading ever since.
And no, I won’t go back to BT downloading. Guess everything fine now.
Hmmm, I have been thinking about this and the motivations behind it.
Sing seems to be in damage-control mode here, in order to stem the bad rep that Odex has beeen getting, and to stop people from resuming their downloading.
In light of the pacnet victory, some of the people who stopped downloading had decided that a conclusive victory had been brought against Odex, and hence resumed downloading thought BT. Perhaps this is Sing’s way of trying to persuade more people from resuming their downloading. Or it could also be a way to look good, -it sounds as if Odex is trying to turn over a new leaf(compared to it’s heavy-handed sudden shock-tactics). Either way, we can see through this sleigh of hand if there is a definite conclusion. IF Odex has a winnable case in court against D/lers, then this seems to be a nicey offer. However, I am firmly believe that Odex has no case against D/Lers. This appears be nothing more than a way of preventing an en-masse resumption of BTing.
I do, however, note that this is made by Sing, and not an official statement. In other words, we have no confirmation that this decision has been approved by the company Odex, just by Sing alone. I find it reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt, since he seems to have learned the consequences of making rash coments.
@JayF Come on, you can’t be so blind as to think that Odex will sit back and not appeal (which they ARE doing, in fact), not after they had won the past 2 suits. In fact, the reason why they lost was not because they did not have the legal rights to do so, but because they made a hash of the documents/evidence to be presented. Which essentially means, they lost on technicalities.
In addition, believe it or not, Odex will be here to stay for the short-mid term. Rather than spit on the olive branch they have extended, why not just give their new VOD scheme a try?
@abao Fair use? We can continue to hope for a review on current copyright laws once again. But then…
@Crest You mean, hats off to those who campaign for a deeper cause? (Unfortunately, I am not, I’m more concerned with mundane issues.)
@I-lawliet I say… LOL. EDMW will always be EDMW.
@exaltdragon I still find it very amusing that you think there is no legal case for Odex to pursue, given the current laws on copyright. As I’ve mentioned earlier, they lost on technicalities, and if they get their act together (I can’t believe those lawyers they hired made a hash of the case presentation and documents), together with the support of the studios, they do have a strong case, especially if they file it under the umbrella organisation, i.e. AVPAS.
In addition, it is an official statement actually by Mr Stephen Sing, if you were to read the the thread (which is now locked, btw). He’s trying to get a statement released to the press though.
Speaking of AVPAS, a few of you mentioned a very salient point on his post at 2:30pm, which seemed very ominous. I quote the end of the post: “… at least not us anyway”. Could this be the cue for AVPAS to enter? The fact that he locked the thread before anyone asked this question makes it even more plausible. Hmm…
I wonder how the news will look in the papers.
Sing’s damage control and PR thus far have been hit-and-miss things.
Will there ever be a chance to clarify where the law stands on the entire issue of downloading and fair-use?
You know people frequently accuse the oil companies of creating false shortages, jacking prices, then lowering them to slightly above where they were beforehand.
IMO, there’s still a possibility that there’s a trap involved in this.
So, it’s still a wait-and-see. Personally, I have no trust in these businessmen.
Lifted? No, it’s just a ruse.
It may seem that someone is holding out the olive branch, but watch out for that pit that just opened up below you.
Don’t trust anything until it has been put in black and white, signed, and proofread by an army of lawyers.
Who is XYSing to make such a condescending ultimatum? What gives him the right to make such a declaration? Again he is implying that he has full authority to charge “wrongdoers” legally and that the cards are all in his hands. Olive branch my ass, more like waving a rotten carrot stick in front of a donkey and leading it to a pit hole full of stakes. This is no damage control, it is just him being smug with his new found “powers” from the Japanese support. I can’t believe people are falling for it. Unfortunately, that’s Singapore for you.
Chill.. Maybe they’re just outta papers to print ur ODEX-ed letters ^^;
@kokanaden: My opinion on something being “illegal” is that a judge rules that it is. Judge Lau mentioned that odex, as a sub licensee, couldn’t hunt and kill downloaders. If AVPAS decides to take action, as an umbrella organisation, is AVPAS the sole licensee?
Let us take a hypothetical situation. Let us say Mr so and so from Japan come to our humble island from Japan to fight the case against a downloader/downloaders. There a many junctures at which the case can be contested.
1. Having your IP address on a tracker doesn’t mean you d/led anything. Maybe you were playing punk with BayTSP and just wanted to play with the bull. Maybe you limited your DL to 0kbps and never received anything or uploaded anything. Sure, morally, it’s enraging, but then again they can’t claim any damages(from a loss of sales or whatever they call it) from you, can they?
2. One anime ep dled/uled doesn’t equal one less DVD(or, in the case of odex, VCD) sold. Self-explanatory.
3. Someone downloads ONE episode of an anime, watches it and deletes it afterward. It can be very well argued that he used that episode as an evaluation.
4. Someone downloads a low-quality TV-rip of an anime. It can be argued that the quality of the product(the DVD) is different from the quality of the TV-rip. This is especially so in terms of the resolution (I remember seeing some nanoha StrikerS extremely low resolution subs on tokyotosho).
5. Someone downloads an anime of which is never broadcasted or made into DVDs/VCDs locally. It can bve argued that odex/whatshisfacewhosues cannot claim damages because no losses have been incurred.
These are but some of the points which can be used to contest their case against downloaders. I am pretty sure there are other weakness that other enlightened individuals have highlighted.
My point in bringing out these points is so that you can be made to understand that the case against fansubs is definitely contestable. Furthermore, there has(as far as I know) been no precedent.
@exalt dragon You miss the point on AVPAS. AVPAS does not just consist of Odex, it is, as I mentioned, an umbrella grouping with members who DO hold the copyrights, or at the very least, hold the distribution rights, which makes the case immeasurably stronger.
I’m not going to rebut the other points, since I myself fervently hope that such reasoning/arguments actually prove to be valid in court. However, I’d prefer to keep reality in check, and as mentioned earlier, in passing, if the laws on copyright ARE biased towards the copyright holder, then the fair play/privacy act would not really be a major factor here. In fact, precedents are important only if the judge is unable to reach a judgement based on the evidence; and in this case, and it remains to be seen if it can be argued successfully that fansubs are not a form/source of privacy.
As for the rest of you, I’ll leave it to you whether to remain believe in this apparent step forward, or to dismiss it as another ruse. However, I would definitely urge an open mind here, rather than blindly diss everything and anything done by Odex.
And seriously, what does “that’s Singapore” have to do with the general reaction? I mean, what does being Singaporean have to do with our perception of Odex’s actions here? That’s a seriously flawed statement which needs to be highlighted and trashed.
Although I’ve been wondering….AVPAS is an umbrella organization of ODEX and who else? Last I heard, Bluemax isn’t exactly in on the game. In fact, I’ve heard that AVPAS is a one-company show.
And on the contrary, I do think being Singaporean does have something to do with our perception of ODEX; it’s something I think is pretty similar to the Japanese “sho ga nai” mindset. Or in short, the “if authority wants to stuff it up your ass, you bend over for him” kind of mindset.
Why not go to the AVPAS website to check it out? Its Odex several Japanese studios actually, if I remember correctly.
I think what you’re pointing out here is that Singaporeans are generally compliant, despite their grouses, towards the government. I’d beg to differ. I’m more inclined to say that they are apathetic instead. There’s a big difference between compliant and apathetic actually.
XEDO has been thrashed by pacnet in court … they can’t send letters anymore.
In my opinion, xysing is not remorseful at all …. and yet he still want to save face ….
Just look at his comments, “Stop the downloading and escape the punishment”
Its sure sound like some cocky bastard who has earned enough profit and feels that his quick bucks has been cut off by the Court.
He has been put in a spot where he has no choice .. and declaring that any downloads before 3/9/2007 will not be look into, is just a fake nice front from XEDO. In actual fact .. they cannot do anything.
The damage has been done. What I urge is to spread the news to the local anime community not to buy their products anymore … they are of low quality in the first place anyway. I’d rather another local company with the right attitude steps up and sells better quality anime, for that, I might even agree to pay more than price tags on XEDO’s products.
Sorry Nick, but while it’s true Singaporeans are usually apathetic more than anything, I don’t think it applies here. I mean, 2-5K isn’t something most Singaporeans would be “apathetic” about, and you know that as well as I do…
Too lazy to log in to reply. Anyway, Ascaloth, I don’t think I need to point out the obvious and fatal flaw in your argument to disprove it.
And as for the rest, I’m sick of your ranting on how Odex is going to die a horrible death just because they lost a suit to Pacnet. They’ve just appealed, and as mentioned by me many, many, many times before, if they get their act together, they DO have a case, going by current legal standards.
In any case, this just shows what most of us anime fans are: when Odex was on the ascendancy, there was gloom all over, and people, despite all their bluster, were hoping/exhorting Odex to compromise, even if just a little bit. Now that a spanner has been thrown in Odex’s wheels, and they are offering an olive branch (the two most likely are correlated, but there is not concrete evidence to show the the former caused the latter), it’s our turn to gloat at them, and bay for more, more and more.
Have some sense people; ceteris paribus, you have to admit that bittorenting does have an effect on a company’s revenue, not to mention profits.
Meh, this is going to be my last comment on this post. continue ranting if you want, and if that makes you feel happy/enlarges your epenis.
No, nick, please do. I’ve been a little slow in the head lately; do please tell me what mistake I am making in my assumption.
Sounds fair enough to me, looks like ODEX understood that pursuing legal action with backlogs is doing damage to their reputation.
For those still complaining, what did you expect? ODEX returning the money they took and apologizing for being an ass and setting up a tracker for you to leech on? Get real people.
As for the money ODEX accumulated by their letters, I’m pretty sure most of that money went to tracking service and legal authorities than on their annual budget.
@NovaJinx Finally a level headed person.
@Ascaloth You first concurred with Musa that its Singaporean to just bend to the will of the government, and then you mentioned that 2-5k isn’t something that Singaporeans should just be apathetic about (apathy was how I would rather describe Singaporeans, if forced to), and well, rightly so. Just look at the Internet furore. In any case, aren’t you a Singaporean yourself? Isn’t those two points alone enough to invalidate your statement (or even mine) that Singaporeans are apathetic and/or bend noiselessly to the will of the government (in this case a corporate organisation willing to sue).
Oh. The way I see it is;
- If a Singaporean isn’t affected by the ODEX crackdown, s/he wouldn’t give a damned about it. That’s called apathy.
- If a Singaporean gets the ‘love letter’, s/he will bitch and moan about it, but be compelled to pay up in the end. That’s called compliance.
Meh, that’s how I define it. Maybe it’s just a case of us seeing things differently here.
Well, I guess I was kinda in a rush when I said “This is Singaporeans”.
I’m just ranting because seriously this is getting too tiring. The whole thing is just sucking out the flaming energies of people from all sides. I don’t give a shit if Odex is doing the right thing or not anymore. I only care that I have to change my lifestyle regardless of the outcome.
If there’s anything to blame, I blame the internet. But that’s not going to help isn’t it?
But if history is of any indication, this will just be another saga in Singapore and once everything dies down, life goes on in Singapore, regardless of the outcome. Singaporeans will just have to let go and live with it.
@kokanaden: I see what you mean. You mean that the **member** of AVPAS, such as the japanese studio, pursues the case…As I mentioned in my above comment, this would be someone from Japan, not the chief of AVPAS….
This is a lil late but i feel i need to comment here… juz in case anyone checks back
by the copyright law, it doesn’t matter if you cause the copyright holders loss in revenue. Yes they can claim damages in terms of loss in revenue but it is not the only form of damage that copyright holders can claim. at the minimal there is still nominal damages which can be anything from 1 dollar to infinity as long as the copyright holders can prove the price they’re asking. This includes investigation fees, etc…
As i can see, most of the people commenting here haven’t received the letter or even bother to meet up with ODEX for the issue. The current position of ODEX is not as a litigator but rather a mediator between the downloaders and the copyright holders themselves. Believe this or not it has been mentioned before but was almost immediately dispelled by many others as lies. Put it this way, ODEX knows they dun have the right to haul the downloaders to court, but they know who else do and these people may jolly well one day haul every single downloader to court. The copyright law is there, black and white, and you know very well as i do when you download it off FTP or BT, it’s infringement already. Yes even one byte of that anime. The copyright owners are already being fair enough to catch the rampant downloaders first so as to warn off people downloading 1 or 2 full episodes. Apparently people are ignoring this warning.
And those jokers who say that companies can’t take u to court because it is a criminal suit ought to be shot. Just because it’s a breach of statute doesn’t mean it’s definitely a criminal suit idiot. It is only a criminal suit when the state brings u to caught and seeks punitive damages. Copyright holders can take u on a civil suit to claim nominal and other damages EXCEPT punitive damages. Get your law books and read. It’s the same whereby someone injures you. The state will take him on a criminal suit for assault and battery but u can also sue him in a civil suit to claim hospital charges and loss of income over the days you can’t work. Totally idiots.
I’ve went down to negotiate the amount and i can say that most of the people did not pay up the exact amount stated. There is a seconds stage where by you can appeal to the copyright holders to lower the 2-5k stated in the initial letter, provided that you can show that you have trouble paying up that amount. As of today 1 month plus i still have not heard anything of ODEX’s reply on the negotiation status, but i assure you guys something, as of September 4th, the day right after the olive branch was given, there were still 1 million plus downloads. Yes they checked the day after. Now u see the problem? It’s no longer the case where people don’t know the law. It’s the case where PEOPLE DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE LAW.
good luck to anyone who gets caught after this… if the issue persists…