Odex revealed that over 483,000 illegal downloads had been made here over the past 10 months alone - making Singapore 10th on the list of countries worldwide with the most illegal anime downloaders. -- PHOTO: THE NEW PAPER
Clarifying its position in a media conference on Thursday, the company even brought in the muscle of anime copyright holders from Japan to back its case.
Odex said it had to take legal action because of the large numbers of illegal downloaders of the Japanese anime titles it brought in.
The company revealed that over 483,000 illegal downloads had been made here over the past 10 months alone - making Singapore 10th on the list of countries worldwide with the most illegal anime downloaders.
Compounding the problem - 59 per cent of households here have high-speed broadband access.
So Singapore has the highest percentage of anime downloads per capita, far ahead of countries like the United States, Australia and Hong Kong.
Odex's aim, said its managing director Peter Go, is to bring down the number of illegal downloads to about 85 per cent.
Odex authorised to act on behalf of copyright holders
To further bolster its case, Odex brought in representatives of four Japanese studios, which own the copyrights of blockbuster series like Naruto, Dragonball, Tsubasa Chronicles, and Romeo and Juliet.
The representatives told reporters through an interpreter, that they support Odex's legal action.
All four studios had in fact issued authorisation letters for Odex to act on their behalf, before the company went to the courts.
Said Mr Yukio Kawasaki, manager of TV Tokyo Corpration: 'If there is a necessity from the courts of Singapore requiring us to come down (physically), then we will come.'
The studios appealed to anime fans to stick to original copies.
Appealing court orders
Odex is currently in the midst of appealing to get a court order which will force Pacific Internet to supply the names of illegal downloaders using its service. A judge had turned down its request last Thursday (Aug 23).
To date, Odex has sent out 300 letters, from the 1,000 Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that SingTel had provided. An IP address is a string of numbers that can identify a user, although web addresses are commonly shared here.
StarHub has also been served with a court order to provide Odex with another 100 ISP addresses.
The Odex fracas has led to fervent online chatter with some anime fans vilifying Odex and others voicing outrage over the court orders forcing Internet Service Providers to reveal the names of their subscribers.
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