A company that distributes Japanese animated cartoons has tracked down thousands of BitTorrent users it accuses of breaching their copyrights and has successfully forced their ISPs to reveal their identities. Next step - threatening letters: ?Pay Us $3,500 or Else?
In 2007 a decision was made in the company to start targeting people who share their material via BitTorrent after they claimed their sales had dropped 60-70 percent in just 2 years. After using a tracking system to collect the IP addresses of sharers, they have successfully forced StarHub - an internet service provider - to reveal the identities of 1000 BitTorrent users they accuse of breaching their copyrights. It had previously forced the ISP SingNet to reveal its customers details.
The next step for Odex is a familiar one to file-sharers: they will use the list of names that StarHub supplies to send them threatening letters(pdf) declaring that they?ve been caught sharing anime, such as the hugely popular ?Bleach?, and that the only alternative to being dragged through the courts, is to pay a $3000-plus ?fine?. Not that they?ll have much time to think about the next step - Odex gives around 9 days for a response before it threatens legal action.
According to Stephen Sing (a director of Odex) the ?downloading situation? in Singapore is very bad: ?We have engaged companies to track illegal downloads in Singapore, and ratio-wise, we?re actually right up there in the illegal downloads in the world, in terms of Japanese animation.?
Mr Sing, has been dubbed ?the most hated main in Singapore?s anime community?, with anime fans putting up his photographs and personal information onto the internet, making wanted posters of him, posting pictures of his wife on the internet, threatening him with violence and promising to set fire to his house. At this point, Sing called in the police.
Mr Sing has been dubbed ?the most hated main in Singapore?s anime community?, with anime fans putting up his photographs and personal information onto the internet, making wanted posters of him, posting pictures of his wife on the internet, threatening him with violence and promising to set fire to his house. At this point, Sing called in the police.
Source: torrentfreak
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