Oh the lack of dexterity

It’s been about four months since one of the biggest PR fiascos of the year, but up till now Odex is still not being spared any heat from the anime community.

Those who’ve not been following newspaper reports and forum threads may be scratching their heads in wonder at the unrelenting anger and indignation of anime downloaders. It seems pretty clear that downloading full episodes of anime is wrong.

Yet people are pissed. Why?

Firstly, because of the draconian way in which Odex has chosen to enforce copyright – by demanding out-of-court settlements, or else. Settlements between $3000 to $5000 are hefty sums to pay, especially since no prior warning notices had been issued to the downloaders. The dizzying penalty, compounded by the abruptness and finality of its imposition, is Strike One.

Further media coverage on the issue revealed that Odex, being a sub-licensee and not the exclusive licensee nor the copyright owner, did not have the legal standing to bring action against alleged downloaders. The two Japanese distributors and representatives of two anime studios who held a press conference in Singapore did not strengthen Odex’s case either – the distributors had been appointed by undisclosed copyright owners, while the two studios had authorised the Anti Video Piracy Association and not Odex to act on their behalf. In 1999, Games Mart, an Odex affiliate, had sold pirated consoles and was raided by the police, but Mr Peter Go and Mr Stephen Sing had not been implicated. Both these incidents undermined the credibility of Odex – Strike Two.

Strike Three is the invasion of consumer privacy. Odex obtained court orders to get SingTel and StarHub to divulge their subscribers’ identities, though it did not manage to do the same for PacNet.

While anime downloaders could not make any robust legal arguments to defend themselves, they nevertheless launched tirades against Odex, not because Odex had wrongfully accused them, but because Odex had acted tactlessly toward them.

Odex has recently changed its frigid approach by issuing electronic notices through the ISPs, offering video-on-demand anime at $2 per episode within a week of its broadcast in Japan, hiring an auditor and giving any excess from its settlements to charity, and even offering not to take action on downloads made before the 3rd of September. But I suspect this has not helped to turn the tide of dissatisfaction as these moves were made only after the impassioned backlash from the anime community, and are likely to be construed as salvage tactics.

It seems to me that Odex did everything backwards, reflecting both a lack of thorough consideration of possible public reactions, and a lack of awareness of the importance that people place on privacy. If it had started with the aforementioned approach instead of settlements, it might have been able to win more sympathy for its cause.

A pity it didn’t, because goodwill once lost is difficult to earn back.