Entries (RSS)Heavy Downloaders sued in Singapore
Writs of summons filed this month for alleged infringement of studios’ copyrights
The Strait Times newspaper reported last Wednesday that five Japanese anime studios are suing four allegedly unauthorized “heavy downloaders” of the studios’ copyrighted material in Singapore. The local law firm Rajah & Tann filed the writs of summons on behalf of Japan’s Showgate, Geneon Entertainment, TV Tokyo, GDH, and Sunrise at the beginning of this month. According to the newspaper, the four indviduals had rejected a previous offer to settle out of court.Earlier this year, Rajah & Tann 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.
However, District Judge Ernest Lau had also ruled last year that the original copyright holders themselves — and not Odex by itself — must take direct legal action, and Singapore’s High Court upheld that ruling in January. Showgate, TV Tokyo Medianet, GDH, Sunrise, Kadokawa Pictures, and Yomiuri TV had announced their support for Odex after Judge Lau’s ruling last year, but Odex director Stephen Sing told The Electric New Paper in August that Odex was not involved with Raja & Tann’s more recent warning letters.
Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-11-17/5-anime-studios-sue-4-heavy-downloaders-in-singapore
Jeez, is it THAT bad now? Hopefully this doesn’t spread anywhere else… as lots of people would be in deep shite if it spread to their country. I heard that Singapore is really strict… so something like this would have went by my mind but as I remember seeing a post similar to that (but not from animenewsnetwork), I wondered why it appeared again… and as it says that Japan is the one suing… I don’t know what to say. I just hope Japan doesn’t force anyone in the U.S. or any other country for the matter to stop the downloading of Anime (or even fansubbed Anime). That would be the worst case scenario for me…
If fansubs died, it would be a good thing.
D; Why?
As much as I do hate the way things are done, I’ll have to back down to it because I don’t understand Japanese and hence cannot truly watch the Anime. Plus, most English dubs are horrible. Fandub and nonfandubs.
For me, the worst case scenario is that they will start to sell subbed Anime, something like the thing is doing Gonzo and crunchyroll. The anime is there, subbed, but… we need to pay to see it.