2 Pieces of News, 2 Cents- No 2

Getting anime illegally online? Beware Japanese animated cartoons distributor sending letters to culprits warning of legal action

By Chua Hian Hou

PRICES of anime DVDs here are the world's lowest, but fans of these Japanese animated cartoons prefer to get them online - for free. Now they may land in the soup because a crackdown has been launched, and they are the targets for downloading these English-subtitled cartoons through file-sharing networks. Local anime distributor Odex, which brings in the DVDs from Japan, has sent out letters to culprits it has identified as having downloaded these 'fansubs' using the Internet and peer-to-peer systems like BitTorrent. 'Fansubs' are the works subtitled by bilingual fans of anime as a service to the community of non-Japanese-speaking anime fans. Odex spokesman Stephen Sing would not say how many legal letters have been issued. A copy of one such letter obtained by The Straits Times announced that Odex would take legal action against the alleged downloader unless he settled the issue. Odex did not say what constituted a settlement. The letter to this particular alleged downloader - a SingNet subscriber - came attached with a three-page listing of alleged downloads. Mr Sing said that Odex, together with the Anti Video Piracy Association of Singapore, had no choice but to take legal action, because 'pirates' here download more anime files than any other country except the United States, which was 'ridiculous, considering our population'. Anime fansubs, around since the 1980s, used to come in video cassettes, but the Internet and BitTorrent have made it cheap and easy to get hold of the cartoons. An anime fan here, who declined to be named, said the community was downloading fansubs because original anime works were of poor quality and overpriced. Mr Sing's counter: 'Perception problem.' Focus groups, he said, have been unable to differentiate fansubs from its DVDs when played back on a 42-inch TV set. Mr Sing added that on a per-DVD basis, prices here were the world's lowest, and that even when Odex bundled three DVDs for a $9.90 trial offer, fans did not bite. In the US, the price of a two-DVD set costs between US$15 and US$20, depending on the anime title. The anime fan was dismissive of the crackdown and said it would not stop fansub piracy. The community is tech-savvy and will find ways to continue downloading without getting caught, he said. Under Singapore's Copyright Act, users found guilty of 'wilful' and 'significant' downloads face fines of up to $20,000 and up to six months behind bars. The Act does not specify what constitutes a significant number of downloads. .......................................................... An interesting article. We are seeing a repeat of history. It was like this with Napster, and now the crackdown is happening to Anime. As it so happens, i was actually reading up on Napster last night, and while it remains a controversial issue, there is actually a bright spark. It may have led to the spread of music piracy and blatant online pilfering of music, but in the end there have also been bands who have benefited from it all. It was a platform for many unknown bands and seeming unpopular musicians to have an easy avenue to showcase their work. Certain bands have reported successes by utilising these file sharing networks to spread their music. The irony with clamping down on japanese animation is this- its popularity in countries all around the world is at an all time high. Names like Naruto, One Piece and Bleach are well recognised as mainstream, popular anime. The success of these series is not only isolated to certain countries, it is a world wide phenomenon. With it, many companies have jumped on the marketing bandwagon and have considerable made lots of money through products like action figures, tody, the comic books themselves, and softcopy DVD's and VCD's of the various series. As far as these series have come, these series are considered to be a commercial success, as reflected by their popularity. This popularity is also not just confined to the younger audience- institutes of higher education have considered japanese animation itself to be a significant field of study, with respect to analysing screen cultures and their socio-cultural impacts. But we must not forget the basis behind the success of these anime series. The very people who are responsible for bringing this phenomenon to the world, are those who have painstakingly taken their time to provide subtitles for the various series, and to distribute them over the internet. It is thru these downloads and fansubbing groups that anime has such a high appeal. To even crack down on such so called "illegally distributed" versions of japanese animation would be, in short, to bite the very hand that feeds you. Legal action is something every person dreads. If even watching animation in this way is considered illegal, then the ramifications of this will be a significantly lower fan base, and a definite decrease in popularity. If ANBU and Anime-One did not perform their fansubs of Naruto, in all honesty it would not have been the commercial success that it is today. Neither would the chinese comic books becomes such a popular hit. Face it, we are all human. No one wants to buy anime and come out disappointed. Downloading anime on a weekly basis is just akin to following the series itself as and when it is released in japan. And lets not forget the fact that there has already been one crackdown so far on anime. Out of this, a list of licensed and unlicensed anime series have already been released. Why the sudden fuss now? This situation has to be assessed. Most likely, there is something deeper behind this crackdown. Perhaps the problem lies internally- that local servers are finding the excessive downloads made by users a problem as it causes network congestion? One possible reason i can think of. Another possible reason? That there just isnt a market for buying so called "original" anime dvd's and vcd's. What to do? No business to be made from selling "cheapest original dvd's and vcd's in the world even when compared to america", cannot cry woh. So call police bring the black and white in LOR This is so typically Singaporean it disgusts me.