Odex's Actions Against File-sharing - Reactions

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 (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 against mature themes (such as yaoi) and on fansubbers—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 (AVPAS) 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" 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, a wanted poster 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 article condemned these online responses as "propaganda" spread by "lynch mobs" 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 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, entitled Xedo Holocaust, and uploaded it to YouTube 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 to wear. A protest by a few people with several action figurines 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 (VOD) on its relaunched website. Users could legally download and unlock a digital rights management (DRM)-protected 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 (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 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.