The Great Anime Fansubbing Scare of '07 (Or not)

ZodiacX · 11-30-2007

Some of you may have picked up on this from various circles, but I'll sum it up here for the non fanatics who dont follow up intensly on this kind of thing.

First thing that happaned was Japan issued a formal complaint with the US, listing greviences including (among other, more important things), the unliscened distrubution of copywrited material online (Fansubs). It seems that many animation coompanies are getting tired of fansubbers, a change of the old "Hey, its free advertising and market research" stance. While this isnt ground breaking, it is important to know for the following, which scared many people.

Earillier this year, a Anime distrubutor in Singapore named "ODEX" launched a very high profile attack on fansub viewers. The first thing they did was attack the ISPs, bullying usernames and address out of them. Then several individuals, mostly teenagers, received legal notices stateing they were actually being SUED for DLing fansubbed anime liscened (in Singapore) by ODEX, some of them for upwards of $3,000 US Dollars (!!!)

Then it hit the US. Users of Comcast and another ISP (I forget the name) received lawyer notices from thier ISPs listing thier DLing of *unliscened* anime. The series in question, of which there were 4 or 5, were yet unliscened in the US at the time, although many of them all allready flagged by a specific company (ie: Gundam 00 everyone knows would go to Bandai, who owns Gundam in the US).

Then reports began drifting in from French users (in France) who were also receiving notices regarding those same series'. In the end, the whole thing ended up being a collosal mistake by an ODEX-employed attack group they paid to attack Singapore DLers, who overstepped thier bounds and began to go international. Still, it really ratteled a lot of people who, for a period of about 3 weeks, had NO idea what was going on, aside from lawsuits and laywer notices being fired seemingly at random regarding unrelated anime series'.

Think this is a general isolated "accidental" incident, or a precident of what may be to come for the future?

11-30-2007	#1
ZodiacX Ninja Ferret! Woosh! Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 801	The Great Anime Fansubbing Scare of '07 (Or not) Some of you may have picked up on this from various circles, but I'll sum it up here for the non fanatics who dont follow up intensly on this kind of thing. First thing that happaned was Japan issued a formal complaint with the US, listing greviences including (among other, more important things), the unliscened distrubution of copywrited material online (Fansubs). It seems that many animation coompanies are getting tired of fansubbers, a change of the old "Hey, its free advertising and market research" stance. While this isnt ground breaking, it is important to know for the following, which scared many people. Earillier this year, a Anime distrubutor in Singapore named "ODEX" launched a very high profile attack on fansub viewers. The first thing they did was attack the ISPs, bullying usernames and address out of them. Then several individuals, mostly teenagers, received legal notices stateing they were actually being SUED for DLing fansubbed anime liscened (in Singapore) by ODEX, some of them for upwards of $3,000 US Dollars (!!!) Then it hit the US. Users of Comcast and another ISP (I forget the name) received lawyer notices from thier ISPs listing thier DLing of unliscened anime. The series in question, of which there were 4 or 5, were yet unliscened in the US at the time, although many of them all allready flagged by a specific company (ie: Gundam 00 everyone knows would go to Bandai, who owns Gundam in the US). Then reports began drifting in from French users (in France) who were also receiving notices regarding those same series'. In the end, the whole thing ended up being a collosal mistake by an ODEX-employed attack group they paid to attack Singapore DLers, who overstepped thier bounds and began to go international. Still, it really ratteled a lot of people who, for a period of about 3 weeks, had NO idea what was going on, aside from lawsuits and laywer notices being fired seemingly at random regarding unrelated anime series'. Think this is a general isolated "accidental" incident, or a precident of what may be to come for the future?