Odex's actions against file-sharing - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Odex's actions against file sharing were legal actions against Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and their subscribers in Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

by Odex

Odex

Odex Pte. Ltd. is a Singapore-based company that licenses and releases anime for local and regional Southeast Asian consumption. It was registered in 1998 to license, import and release overseas drama and animation into Singapore. It began distribution in 2000...

, a Singaporean-based company that virtually distributes sub-licensed Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

. From early 2007 to January 2008 Odex took action against anyone who had downloaded anime through BitTorrent for alleged copyright infringement

Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...

, even if they did not download Gundam SEED

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED

is an anime series developed by Sunrise and directed by Mitsuo Fukuda. As with other series from the Gundam franchise, Gundam SEED takes place in a parallel timeline, in this case the Cosmic Era, the first to do so...

, the only anime exclusively-licensed by Odex, even though Odex had no legal grounds to do so due to the lack of exclusive-licensing on other titles. Odex tracked their IP address

IP address

An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...

es without their consent and sought subpoena

Subpoena

A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...

s to compel the ISPs to disclose the personal details of these subscribers. After rulings from the Subordinate Courts

Subordinate Courts of Singapore

The Subordinate Courts of Singapore is one of the two tiers of the court system in Singapore, the other tier being the Supreme Court. The Subordinate Courts comprise the District and Magistrate Courts—both of which oversee civil and criminal matters—as well as specialised family, juvenile,...

, Odex took personal data from affected ISPs and sent letters demanding payment in place of litigation even though Odex had no right to do so unless the individual downloaded Gundam SEED. More than a third of the individuals contacted by Odex opted to settle out of court for at least S$

Singapore dollar

The Singapore dollar or Dollar is the official currency of Singapore. It is normally abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or alternatively S$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...

3,000 (US$

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

2,000) to S$

Singapore dollar

5,000 (US$

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

4,000) each.

The Singaporean anime community considered Odex's actions to be controversial, sudden, and heavy-handed—especially when it was discovered that the youngest person threatened was nine years old. In response, Odex dropped its pay-or-be-sued letter approach in favor of cease-and-desist emails to downloaders. Odex halted active enforcement after its third subpoena was rejected by the courts and lost a lawsuit when trying to obtain customer data from another ISP. In January 2008, Odex appealed the decision, and the High Court of Singapore ruled that one ISP was required to release data, but only directly to Japanese anime studios. Subsequently, these studios started their own legal actions against Singaporean downloaders. Some observers predicted that the High Court's decision would set a precedent

Precedent

In common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a principle or rule established in a legal case that a court or other judicial body may apply when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts...

for online privacy in Singapore by making it more difficult for copyright licensees to take legal action against downloading. The case raised issues of individual privacy, intellectual property, and free use of the Internet. Odex's actions attracted widespread criticism in Singapore and international attention and press coverage, which coincided with similar actions against consumer file sharing of music

Trade group efforts against file sharing

Impact of illegal downloading on the film industryArts and media industry trade groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America strongly oppose and attempt to prevent copyright infringement through file sharing...

in the United States.

Actions

Odex is a Singapore

Singapore

an company that licenses and releases anime for local and regional consumption. The company tracked people it believed to be illegally downloading its releases in Singapore, using the method employed by the Recording Industry Association of America

Recording Industry Association of America

The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...

(RIAA) in the United States. Like the RIAA, Odex hired the American tracking company BayTSP

BayTSP

Irdeto Intelligence is a copyright enforcement company based in Los Gatos, California. Irdeto Intelligence was formed by CEO Mark M. Ishikawa and offers defensive services to owners of intellectual property concerned about potential unauthorized distribution through the Internet...

to obtain the IP address

IP address

es of downloaders from their respective countries and to track them for several months. BayTSP singled out the website AnimeSuki

Animesuki

AnimeSuki is a website and "... the largest database of BitTorrent anime shows" that focuses on providing unlicensed anime fansubs using the BitTorrent peer-to-peer system. The website was created by GHDpro on December 26, 2002. Animesuki is not a tracker; instead, it provides links to many...

as a major source of the downloads and tracked many of its BitTorrent users. This data was used to apply for subpoena

Subpoena

s to compel ISPs to reveal personal information associated with each IP address. In May 2007, the ISP SingNet

SingNet

SingNet is a subsidiary internet service provider branch of Singapore Telecommunications. It is one of four commercial internet system providers in Singapore .-Services:*Consumer Dial-up services...

consented in writing to release personal information about its customers, before Odex's first application against the ISP had its hearing. On 13 August, Odex succeeded in its application against StarHub

StarHub

StarHub Limited is a full-fledged telecommunications company providing a full range of services over mobile, internet and fixed platforms in Singapore...

, which, as a result, was required to reveal the identities of about 1,000 ISP users. Odex was represented by law firm Rajah & Tann in all its cases against major ISPs, including its application against Pacific Internet

Pacific Internet

Pacific Internet was headquartered in Singapore and was the largest telco-independent Internet Communications Service Provider in the Asia Pacific region with direct presence in Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, Australia, India, Thailand and Malaysia...

.

After downloading that originated from Singaporean IP addresses had been recorded by BayTSP, Odex sent letters of demand

Demand letter

A demand letter, or LOD, ie. a Letter Of Demand , is letter stating a legal claim which makes a demand for restitution or performance of some obligation, owing to the recipients' alleged breach of contract, or for a legal wrong.In the United States, demand letters from a debt collector relating to...

to people associated with the IP addresses it had tracked. The letters requested monetary compensation for downloads of the company's licensed material. The recipients were asked to contact Odex within one week and pay settlement fees from S$

Singapore dollar

3,000 to S$5,000 or face legal action. The recipients also had to sign a non-disclosure agreement

Non-disclosure agreement

A non-disclosure agreement , also known as a confidentiality agreement , confidential disclosure agreement , proprietary information agreement , or secrecy agreement, is a legal contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties...

, promise to destroy all copies of the downloaded anime, and stop downloading the copyrighted material.

On 9 August 2007, an Odex representative said it intended to obtain search warrant

Search warrant

A search warrant is a court order issued by a Magistrate, judge or Supreme Court Official that authorizes law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person or location for evidence of a crime and to confiscate evidence if it is found....

s for illegally downloaded anime if necessary. The company initially believed that, unlike in other countries, mere warning letters would not stop the downloads in Singapore. Letters were sent mainly to people who had downloaded more popular series, such as Bleach
Bleach (manga)
is a Japanese shōnen manga series written and illustrated by Noriaki "Tite" Kubo. Bleach follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki after he obtains the powers of a —a death personification similar to the Grim Reaper—from another Soul Reaper, Rukia Kuchiki...

, D.Gray-man
D.Gray-man
is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Katsura Hoshino. The series tells the story of a boy named Allen Walker, a member of an organization of Exorcists who makes use of an ancient substance called Innocence to combat the Millennium Earl and his demonic army of akuma...

, Fullmetal Alchemist
Fullmetal Alchemist
, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. The world of Fullmetal Alchemist is styled after the European Industrial Revolution...

and InuYasha
InuYasha
, also known as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. It premiered in Weekly Shōnen Sunday on November 13, 1996 and concluded on June 18, 2008...

. There was speculation from the online community that the company would collect approximately S$15 million from 3,000 individuals from out-of-court settlements, but Odex responded that it did not require each of them to pay a uniform S$5,000. The main factor it considered when deciding the level of compensation to demand was the amount of downloading by each individual. Odex confirmed that more than 3,000 IP addresses had been disclosed as a result of the court order

Court order

A court order is an official proclamation by a judge that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out of certain steps by one or more parties to a case...

s, but estimated that the amount collected would cover less than 20% of its enforcement costs. The company's director, Peter Go, subsequently revealed that most of the compensation

Damages

In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...

payments had been paid to BayTSP and to ISPs for the retrieval of their subscribers' personal data. He justified his company's actions by stating that, according to BayTSP's statistics, Singapore had one of the highest rates of illegal anime downloads in the world and that Odex wanted to reduce this by 85%.

On 3 September 2007, Odex director Stephen Sing announced on his company's Internet forum

Internet forum

An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...

that Odex would no longer send letters of demand to Internet users who had stopped their illegal downloading since the beginning of the enforcement drive. Two weeks later, Odex installed an online warning system developed by BayTSP that generated cease and desist

Cease and desist

A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....

emails intended for the alleged downloaders. The company did not obtain subscribers' information directly from ISPs, but relied on ISPs to forward such emails to their subscribers. Sing vowed that Odex would rely on weekly reports generated by BayTSP to continue its anti-piracy drive, and that it would again resort to legal action if downloaders or their ISPs did not respond acceptably.

On 29 January 2008, the High Court handed down its ruling on Odex's appeal. It held that Pacific Internet had to release the names of the alleged illegal downloaders directly to the Japanese anime studios. In the light of this decision, Peter Go said that the company's role would shift from active enforcement to assisting the studios in their possible courses of action.

Reactions

The company's actions attracted national media attention and were harshly criticised by the Singaporean anime community as "sudden and severe". anime fans were outraged by the issuing of legal threats to children as young as nine years old, as they believed children were unable to differentiate between legal and illegal downloading. There were widespread calls in online blogs and forums to boycott Odex's products.
Odex blamed the approximate 70% fall in its Video CD

Video CD

Before the advent of DVD and Blu-ray, the Video CD became the first format for distributing films on standard 120 mm optical discs. The format is a standard digital format for storing video on a Compact Disc...

(VCD) and Digital Video Disc (DVD) sales in 2006 and 2007 on illegal downloading. The response of anime fans was that the fall in sales was because Odex's products were inferior, inaccurately translated, and released later than the online versions. Odex subsequently attributed the inaccurate subtitling on censorship laws

Censorship in Singapore

Censorship in Singapore mainly targets sexual, political, racial and religious issues, as defined by out-of-bounds markers.-Implementation:The Media Development Authority approves publications, issues arts entertainment licences and enforces the Free-to-air TV Programme Code, Cable TV Programme...

against mature themes (such as yaoi

Yaoi

In careful Japanese enunciation, all three vowels are pronounced separately, for a three-mora word, . The English equivalent is . also known as Boys' Love, is a Japanese popular term for female-oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually created by...

) and on fansub

Fansub

A fansub is a version of a foreign film or foreign television program which has been translated by fans and subtitled into a language other than that of the original.-History:...

bers—anime fans who had translated the Japanese dialogue—whom they had hired. In response, the Board of Film Censors said that it did not ask for subtitles to be changed, that it merely classified content, and that the onus was on distributors to ensure accurate subtitles. In addition to problems of quality and scheduling, criticisms were directed at Odex's litigious strategy and poor public relations. Odex received support from the Anti Video Piracy Association of Singapore

Anti Video Piracy Association of Singapore

Anti Video Piracy Association of Singapore is an anti-piracy alliance with other anime producers founded by Odex on 30 July 2003. The association lists over 400 titles and is supported by at least one governmental agency. AVPAS is not a governmental agency by itself...

(AVPAS - which was owned and headed by none other than Sing himself) in making its demands for compensation.

Stephen Sing was mocked and criticised after posting comments to an online forum which many considered to be gloating. Messages posted by Sing under the nickname "xysing" included "Me too busy suing people" [sic] and "Hahahahah! I double-6-ed so many downloaders serve them right!" Sing was labelled the "most hated man in Singapore's anime community" by members of the blogosphere

Blogosphere

The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...

, a wanted poster

Wanted poster

A wanted poster is a poster distributed to let the public know of an alleged criminal whom authorities wish to apprehend. They will generally include either a picture of the alleged criminal when a photograph is available, or of a facial composite image produced by a police artist...

with his face circulated online, and he was taunted openly in his office. Sing asserted that threats of arson, assault and even death were made against him and filed a police report. Although he expressed regret over the remarks because they were a "PR disaster" and "very wrong", he said that he had written them while feeling frustrated and did not apologise. He dismissed his "double-6-ed" remark, an expression of joy at the threats of lawsuits, as having been made "two months ago", but it was revealed that they had been made only three weeks earlier. A Sunday Times
The Straits Times
The Straits Times is an English language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore currently owned by Singapore Press Holdings . It is the country's highest-selling paper, with a current daily circulation of nearly 400,000...

article condemned these online responses as "propaganda" spread by "lynch mobs

Lynching

Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...

" and noted that some of these netizens had revealed the home addresses of Odex's employees. Odex placed a quarter-page advertisement in The Straits Times
The Straits Times
The Straits Times is an English language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore currently owned by Singapore Press Holdings . It is the country's highest-selling paper, with a current daily circulation of nearly 400,000...

on 22 August 2007 to explain its actions.

Allegations were made by the online community that Odex had passed off fansubs as its own work. Sing admitted that this was partially true as Odex had hired anime fans to do subtitling in 2004 who had taken "the easy way out and copied word for word the subtitles on fansubs they downloaded". Sing explained that when Odex released its anime, the company did not realise what the anime fans had done, and it has been "paying for this mistake ever since". It was reported at the same time that all of Odex's translation and subtitling was now done "in house". However, Odex's release of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya in September 2007 was found to contain translations strongly resembling an earlier unauthorised fansub release. Emails were also sent to the media saying that Sing and Go were directors and shareholders of a defunct company, Games Mart, that shared the same corporate address as Odex and had been raided in 1999 by the police for selling pirated game consoles. This information was confirmed by the press, and Go wrote a letter to the media explaining that Games Mart was not affiliated with Odex in any way.
Members of an online forum expressed their unhappiness by selling "anti-Odex" T-shirts. Another netizen created a video parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

, entitled Xedo Holocaust, and uploaded it to YouTube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

and other video-sharing websites. A website was established giving details of an "Odex VCD recycling drive", where those who joined could exchange their Odex VCDs for a black awareness ribbon

Black ribbon

The black ribbon, like similar awareness ribbons, is worn or displayed as a political statement.The ribbon has been used in a variety of manners:* 9/11 - This ribbon is a sign of mourning for those killed in the September 11th attack....

to wear. A protest by a few people with several action figurine

Action figure

An action figure is a posable character figurine, made of plastic or other materials, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, video game, or television program. These action figures are usually marketed towards boys and male collectors...

s took place on 25 August 2007 under intense police scrutiny, which was considered by Western observers to be a rarity in Singapore. An online group, Xedo Defense, was set up to provide support for the downloaders facing legal action. It raised funds to hire a collective lawyer from Infinitus Law Corporation to represent two of the downloaders when suits were filed against them in November 2008 by the anime studios.

There were assertions that Odex had charged 10% interest for settlements paid through an installment plan, but a press release by the company denied that it had required any such interest payments. By September 2007, 105 out of the 300 SingNet subscribers who had received letters had negotiated with and paid Odex, although, in a news conference, Odex said that it had neither forced payment from nor fined anyone. The company explained that it would not profit from the enforcement process and intended to donate to charity any excess amount received. It would also release a financial audit of all the money collected at the close of proceedings. On 31 August 2007, in an attempt to address criticisms of late releases, Odex began to offer video on demand

Video on demand

Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...

(VOD) on its relaunched website. Users could legally download and unlock a digital rights management (DRM)-protected

Digital rights management

Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...

anime episode at S$2 for seven days.

In mid-November 2007, the cease-and-desist emails initiated by Odex and BayTSP reached several users in Japan, France, and the United States, some in the form of Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...

(DMCA) notices from their ISPs. Although Odex and BayTSP announced shortly afterwards that the emails were sent out in error, Japanese commentators suggested that the enforcement action was "a step in a right direction". On 21 November 2007, Odex's website was hacked and defaced

Website defacement

A website defacement is an attack on a website that changes the visual appearance of the site or a webpage. These are typically the work of system crackers, who break into a web server and replace the hosted website with one of their own....

and the VOD service put out of action. Its main page was replaced by an angry message against the company's legal actions, and experts interviewed by representatives of the local media said that the perpetrator likely was from Singapore.

Subordinate Courts' decision

On 16 August 2007, Odex initiated legal action against a third Internet Service Provider, Pacific Internet

Pacific Internet

. Odex sought to have Pacific Internet disclose the personal information of about 1,000 subscribers. The closed-door hearing was held on 23 August 2007 in the Subordinate Courts

Subordinate Courts of Singapore

, where District Judge Earnest Lau ruled that Pacific Internet did not have to reveal its subscribers' personal information. Lau believed that Odex was not the correct party to make the application, despite having permission to prosecute on behalf of the Japanese anime studios. The decision came as a surprise to many, and Odex quickly announced its intent to appeal. Although Lau denied Odex the court order, he warned that the right to privacy was no defence for copyright infringement.

In light of the decision, the ISP StarHub

StarHub

StarHub Limited is a full-fledged telecommunications company providing a full range of services over mobile, internet and fixed platforms in Singapore...

, represented by Drew & Napier

Drew & Napier

Drew & Napier LLC is one of Singapore's leading law firms, with over 250 lawyers and fee-earners.The practice is active in dispute resolution, and also in Corporate Insolvency & Restructuring, Intellectual Property , Competition & Antitrust, Telecommunications, Media & Technology and Tax, with...

, said "[we are] assessing our options, given the different decisions rendered by the court". Meanwhile, it was revealed that SingNet had consented to Odex's application, had not instructed its lawyers to attend the hearing, and the two week deadline for appealing against the application had passed. SingNet's failure to contest Odex's application, perhaps even expediting it, was perceived by some of its subscribers as a voluntary breach of privacy

Invasion of privacy

United States privacy law embodies several different legal concepts. One is the invasion of privacy, a tort based in common law allowing an aggrieved party to bring a lawsuit against an individual who unlawfully intrudes into his or her private affairs, discloses his or her private information,...

. SingNet later declared that it neither "gave consent" nor assisted Odex in its application for the release of subscriber information, and that its customer subscriptions remained unaffected.

In a rare move, District Judge Earnest Lau released a 14-page judgment explaining the court's denial of Odex's request for Pacific Internet's client information. He compared Odex's demands to an Anton Piller order

Anton Piller order

In English and English-derived legal systems, an Anton Piller order is a court order that provides the right to search premises and seize evidence without prior warning...

, which provides for the right to search premises and seize evidence without prior warning. Seen as draconian, it is only used under extreme circumstances. He held that only copyright holders themselves, or their exclusive licensees, can bring such applications and that he was not satisfied with the evidence harvested by BayTSP for the identification of downloaders. Out of all the anime licensed to Odex, only the license in respect of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
is an anime series developed by Sunrise and directed by Mitsuo Fukuda. As with other series from the Gundam franchise, Gundam SEED takes place in a parallel timeline, in this case the Cosmic Era, the first to do so...

had been granted exclusively to the company. The judge noted that, out of the 13 authorisation letters presented in court, ten of them authorised the Anti Video Piracy Association of Singapore

Anti Video Piracy Association of Singapore

(AVPAS), not Odex, to act for the copyright holders. Odex was ordered to pay Pacific Internet's legal costs of S$7,000.

High Court appeal

Odex's appeal against the Subordinate Courts' decision began on 3 October 2007 before Justice Woo Bih Li

Woo Bih Li

Justice Woo Bih Li is a judge of the Supreme Court of Singapore.Justice Woo received his LL.B. from the University of Singapore in 1977, and was admitted as an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court the following year. He joined the law firm Allen & Gledhill in 1970 and in 1992, he...

in the High Court. BayTSP's CEO, Mark Ishikawa, and representatives of four Japanese studios, including TV Tokyo

TV Tokyo

is a television station headquartered in Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Also known as , a blend of "terebi" and "Tokyo", it is the key station of TX Network. It is one of the major Tokyo television stations, particularly specializing in anime...

, Gonzo and Toei Animation

Toei Animation

Toei Animation Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio owned by Toei Co., Ltd. The studio was founded in 1948 as Japan Animated Films . In 1956, Toei purchased the studio and it was reincorporated under its current name...

, flew to Singapore to testify on behalf of Odex. Although the Japanese companies intended to file lawsuits themselves should Odex fail, the High Court approved their addition as parties to Odex's appeal.

In his judgment of 29 January 2008, Justice Woo ordered Pacific Internet to release its subscribers' information only to the six Japanese companies that were parties to the case. He explicitly denied Odex access to this information. He upheld District Judge Lau's decision that Odex was not the correct party to have asked for release of subscriber data. As a result, he directed the company to pay Pacific Internet's legal costs of S$20,000. Following the ruling, some downloaders who had already settled with Odex planned a countersuit to recover their settlement monies. The ruling may have set a precedent for online privacy in Singapore by making it more difficult for copyright licensees to take legal action against downloaders.

Further action by anime studios

In early August 2008, seven months after the High Court ruling, Showgate (previously Toshiba Entertainment), Geneon Entertainment, Sunrise

Sunrise (company)

is a Japanese animation studio and production enterprise. It is a subsidiary of Namco Bandai Holdings. Its former name was Nippon Sunrise, and prior to that, Sunrise Studios...

, Gonzo and TV Tokyo

TV Tokyo

initiated their own legal actions against downloaders. Like Odex, they were represented by Rajah & Tann and sent out letters of demand for payment to SingNet, StarHub and Pacific Internet subscribers asking users to "enter discussions" with the studios' solicitors within seven days. Showgate, which supported Odex in its appeal against Pacific Internet, consulted Odex before beginning its legal actions. Settlements were reported to range between S$5,000 and S$6,000 per person, and in August 2008, BayTSP was reported to be in contractual talks with other anime studios to track downloaders in Singapore.

Three months later, the anime studios filed a writ of summons with the Subordinate Courts against four "heavy downloaders". The hearing is likely to begin in 2009 or 2010, and legal fees could range from S$50,000 to S$80,000. The suits are closely watched by the public, as a ruling in favour of the studios could result in a flood of lawsuits against downloaders of other pirated media, such as movies and games.

Legal opinions and analysis

The case was covered extensively by the country's newspapers. In The Straits Times
The Straits Times
The Straits Times is an English language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore currently owned by Singapore Press Holdings . It is the country's highest-selling paper, with a current daily circulation of nearly 400,000...

of Singapore, lawyers who were interviewed said anime fans would not have a strong defence against Odex if proof of uploading or downloading of unauthorised videos was presented. In his analysis, Thomas Koshy—a legal academic writing in Today
Today (Singapore newspaper)
Today is a free English-language compact in Singapore published by government-owned MediaCorp print media arm. It is distributed from Monday to Sunday....

—questioned the legality of Odex's threatening criminal prosecution of downloaders. Koshy maintained that only the Attorney-General had the power to prosecute and that there was no indication that he had authorized Odex to conduct prosecutions on his behalf. Moreover, Koshy opined that it was improper for Odex to have combined its demand for compensation with a threat of criminal prosecution; although Odex's letters alleged "illegal downloading activity", the company threatened punishment associated with the more serious offence of distributing materials which infringed copyrights. Koshy noted that Odex had cited a legal provision intended to regulate people's pirating for monetary gain rather than downloading by a casual consumer. Burton Ong, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law

National University of Singapore Faculty of Law

The National University of Singapore, Faculty of Law is the older of Singapore's two law schools. The Faculty was initially established as the Department of Law in the then University of Malaya in 1956, with the first batch of students matriculating in the following year...

, suggested that an anime fan who downloaded a few episodes may have been able to rely on "fair dealing

Fair dealing

Fair dealing is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work, which is found in many of the common law jurisdictions of the Commonwealth of Nations....

" as a defence against the charge of copyright infringement. One of the criteria for pursuing this line of defence would have been proving that the download subsequently boosted, rather than undermined, the commercial viability of the anime industry.

Anime fans and sympathisers used the Internet to raise funds and lodge a legal challenge to Odex's methods; one Internet user created an invitation-only forum for those considering going to court against Odex over its allegations of illegal downloads. Fans solicited legal advice

Legal advice

In the common law, legal advice is the giving of a formal opinion regarding the substance or procedure of the law by an officer of the court , ordinarily in exchange for financial or other tangible compensation...

and put together a library of relevant material. A letter to The Straits Times pointed out that downloaders deciding to settle out of court with Odex were afforded no protection from lawsuits initiated by other companies within the anime industry.

Following District Judge Earnest Lau's ruling in the Odex v. Pacific Internet lawsuit, Koshy expressed his belief that SingNet might be in breach of the spirit of the Telecommunications Competition Code, which protects the confidentiality of subscribers' information and prohibits unauthorised release. Another lawyer interviewed by ZDNet

ZDNet

ZDNet is a business technology news website published by CBS Interactive, along with TechRepublic and SmartPlanet. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991 as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication owned by CNET...

, however, did not think that SingNet's actions were improper, and a spokesman for the Infocomm Development Authority

Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore is a statutory board of the Singapore Government, under the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts .-History:...

announced that SingNet was found to be in compliance with the code. Andy Ho, another The Straits Times editor, expressed concern that private entities might use intellectual property

Intellectual property

Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...

laws invasively, thus precipitating a chilling effect on free speech; he called for privacy law

Privacy law

Privacy law refers to the laws which deal with the regulation of personal information about individuals which can be collected by governments and other public as well as private organizations and its storage and use....

s to be quickly enacted.

Actions

Reactions

Subordinate Courts' decision

High Court appeal

Further action by anime studios

Legal opinions and analysis

See also

Further reading