= LifE Of a GaL =

Oh no. Latest article in the newspaper today has stated that Odex, who sells anime in VCDs (note: I think they sell those in silver boxes), has taken action against people who downloads anime. Basically from what I gather after reading about a dozen websites, they catch people who downloads by bittorrent. But of course, I guess nobody should take any chance doing any direct downloading either. Basically you get fined for 5k per anime downloaded, and they track you for all the downloads that you do since March this year.

According to a post made by someone in one of the websites, stopping the downloading/torrenting now does not protect you, cos' the person that made the post stopped since July, and still got a letter from Odex. But of course, if you are still downloading, you should stop now to reduce the liability in case they decide to send ya a letter, choy choy.

Anyway, after reading some websites, people has expressed concern over the issue of human rights and privacy as StarHub and SingTel currently gives the names of the IP addresses that Odex asked for to get the identity of the downloaders. Basically, they managed to secure a court order to get these names, which is quite expected, cos' the law stands on the side that downloaders are wrong. I guess there's not much of a say about human rights and privacy, like when you broke the law, or suspected of having broken the law, the police are allowed to track all those internet trails and stuff, I think even if you say "I love you" to your boyfriend on MSN, they can track it. And after they track the IP address, to find the culprit they have to find the name of the address also. So downloaders have broken the law, and Odex do have the right to go get the names. I don't think this has anything to do with human rights, as for privacy, whatever you do online, you should know that there's no privacy already.

So for all anime fans out there, I guess the suggestions made by the various blogs and websites are quite sufficient. Well, the law is the law, although the quality of anime sold by Odex are really poor, (I have 2 boxes of their anime in my house. 1 bought and 1 given to my brother as present) there's nothing we can do about it yeah. So to carry on watching anime, the best way is watch online. If you wanna keep anime, one way is to buy from a company that sells higher quality anime from overseas. Another is get your overseas friend who is in a country that is not strict about this and download, burn and mailed over. Anyway, my suggestions for these is not that I wanna boycott Odex (seriously many fans are so irritated so they say boycott it. I was irritated too, but wellz), it's more cos' I guess there's no point buying low quality anime for such a high price. Don't waste money, buy better quality from overseas.

I heard that the company is like going into higher quality stuff, selling dvds. Hrm, the last time I saw a Bleach DVD, it's like VERY ex. Last time it was like 10 episodes, for about 30 bucks. I forgot how much was the DVD, but it's more ex than that. Anyway, Naruto is not on their list, but I wouldn't take the risk. Naruto is currently distributed by Blue Max, their quality is quite good. (I have 9 boxes of them, so I know) And besides, Blue Max is my favourite VCD/DVD store =P.

Don't be too sad, anime lovers. But I think I would miss the great quality fansubbed episodes. Thanks to all fansubbers who worked so hard. It's cos' of you that I love anime.