Actions
Odex is a Singaporean 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 (RIAA) in the United States. Like the RIAA, Odex hired the American tracking company BayTSP to obtain the IP addresses of downloaders from their respective countries and to track them for several months. BayTSP singled out the website AnimeSuki as a major source of the downloads and tracked many of its BitTorrent users. This data was used to apply for subpoenas to compel ISPs to reveal personal information associated with each IP address. In May 2007, the ISP SingNet 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, which, as a result, was required to reveal the identities of about 1,000 ISP users. However, it is revealed that Starhub didn't revealed any user data to Odex as they were reviewing their rights when Odex lost their appeal to Pacific Internet (PacNet). Odex was represented by law firm Rajah & Tann in all its cases against major ISPs, including its application against PacNet.
After downloading that originated from Singaporean IP addresses had been recorded by BayTSP, Odex sent letters of demand 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$3,000 to S$5,000 or face legal action. The recipients also had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, 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 warrants 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, D.Gray-man, Fullmetal Alchemist and InuYasha. 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 orders, 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 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 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 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.
Read more about this topic: Odex's Actions Against File-sharing
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