As you may well know, the whole Odex saga has been blown totally out of scale, what with Stephen Sing, the CEO of Odex, getting death treats and all (rightly so? Maybe...) and making headlines in the local newspapers. Anyway, the latest on the ongoing Odex thing has just hit Singapore's online community.
While reading DarkMirage's blog today, I've came across this article which says that Odex won't be sending anymore backlog letters from the 3rd of September onwards, meaning that if you stop downloading from today onwards, Odex won't sue you.
Quote by Stephen Sing, as taken from his post in his forum:
"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.
"
As you may well know, Odex has recently lost a court case with PacNet, giving its already tarnished image another blow. Though they brought in representatives from the various anime producers in Japan to help them fight for their case, the damage is already done. In the past weeks after the landmark victory by PacNet, the Singapore internet communtity was rift with speculations and rumors, including all the usual flaming and other stuff.
In an apparent effort to gain whatever support it can from its customer base, Odex gave its site a revamp after leaving it alone for two years. It now looks quite good, with the latest news on its new releases and even includes a forum. Video on Demand (VOD) has also since been made available on the site, though it can only be watched for 7 days, unlike music you get from
This new move by Odex certainly appears to be a step in the right direction, though it could have come much earlier...In fact, it should have been the first thing they did. By sending out Cease and Desists letters (which is basically what the statement is saying), they could have avoided all the backlash they suffered by choosing the high-handed approach and sueing people.
A quote by Riuva would let us see the possible benefits of this new development:
"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. "
So now, what about those people who already got letters? Who knowns...Suck thumb, I guess.
Me? Well, I'll stop after Claymore, Lucky Star and Higurashi is over, then I'll stop. I'll get Haruhi and Shana 2 on DVD.
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