Odex

Anime fans and those who have been reading the newspapers would probably have heard about it. Odex are now suing people who download animes illegally. Presently this concerns Singnet and Starhub users after the lawsuit against Pacific Net to release the names of its users in such activities was turned down. Violators faces a $3-5k settlement fee plus a promise of sort not to do it again. Illegal downloaders here are finally going to face the music thus this has actually caused quite a ruckus among the anime community here.

The commotion started when the owner of Odex posted comments online saying he's busy suing people irking many people online. The anime community has also started to hit back against Odex posting their counter-arguments about Odex case on forums online and pooling $$ in an apparent bid for a legal showdown.

While I'm no downloader when it comes to anime, I rather watch it from stream sources like youtube, actions by Odex have really irked me. Firstly though Odex got permission from anime studios in Japan to raise its case, the $3-5k settlement fee is ridiculous if u consider the amount of money lost due to loss of sale. Even the most hardcore illegal downloader could hardly chalk up that amount. $3k would probably translate to at least 50 series worth of anime, that really a lot and most downloaders would surely fall short to that amount. Secondly, since Odex isn't the sole distributor, it doesn't make sense that the fee is paid to Odex, since the loss in sale also affected other distributors. Even if the money is eventually paid to anime studios, I seriously doubt all anime studios authorised Odex to claim settlement. So if someone downloads an anime series that do not originate from the studios authorizing Odex to claim settlement it isn't right that he/she pay settlement to Odex isn't it? Lastly anime fans who actually bought products from Odex claimed that its subbing(translation) are either lifted from fan-sub communities or of really poor quality in terms of content. To this Odex itself have admitted to its less than satisfactory QC, then Odex couldn't blame its loss of sale solely due to illegal downloads.

What anime fans really want is to follow the anime series as it is aired in Japan, which local distributors isn't able to provide since each series of DVD/VCD are put on sale after a significant number of episodes are aired. Thus fans turn to fan sub communities who taped the show from TV and subbed it within 1-2 days before posting them online for all to watch, free of course. Though i agree that these fan sub communities resulted in a loss of sale for anime studios but they no doubt also helped popularise these animes as well. All in all Odex is just too hard-handed on its part, though it may have won on copyright, it certainly lost on PR.