Five Japanese anime studios are prosecuting people downloading their videos without permission copyrighted material in Singapore.
Rajah & Tann on behalf of the studios file a four writs which is written order issued by a court namely namely Showgate, Geneon Entertainment, TV Tokyo, GDH and Sunrise.
According to The Strait Times newspaper last wednesday which is according to the newspaper, the four indviduals had rejected a previous offer to settle out of court.
Rajah & Tann already sent warning letters to alleged anime file-sharers on behalf of Showgate. Those earlier letters said that these individuals had been using the BitTorrent file-sharing system to download anime and infringe on Showgate’s copyrights. Last year, the local anime distributor Odex had sent legal warnings to several Singaporeans for allegedly unauthorized downloading.
Writs are alleged infringement of studios’ copyrights.
only amateurs use bit torrent to download anime. nevertheless, i applause the 4 who didn’t give in to offer to settle out of court. never give up on the fight!
This has been mentioned in Sankaku Complex, and the opposition have answered.
@gordon
Agree, those were the brave ones.
@TP
Opposition sure have good lecturing.
I was hoping ODEX would have sunk under, what with a lack of news about them until now… harder to kill than that AEU pilot.
The truth behind this is the offender stand a good chance of victory if the case would ever be brought to court. Should the law suit turn in favor of the patent holder, the judgment would just open the flood gates.
Anime is not the only files being shared over the net. Imagine if the case is won. Music downloads would be illegal. Movies download would be illegal. Drama downloads would be illegal. Even pictures sharing could be under scrutiny. Next step these money mongrels would be after would be streaming. Making platforms like Youtube the next level to face the axe.
In fact some Anime companies are starting to change and reform their business strategies to counter or rather adapt to file sharing. Like an old saying, if you cannot “defeat it, join it”. Geneon Entertainment is already moving towards that direction.
To get revenues for their works, I presume that the companies most likely rely on the deep pockets of the Otakus to purchase merchandises like Figures, Posters, Special Edition DVDs or even boaster covers.
But why these companies are still against file sharing could be due to the fact, they still harbor hopes that fans would want to purchase their DVDs as an extra income if they like the series, as a deterrent for possible mass sharing/distribution of their product or even peer pressure. However, this is still pretty much a mystery for many and what direction they would take is still grey in the eyes of the general audience.
Oops.. Should be Gonzo instead of Geneon Entertainment.