Bon, eh bien c'était apparemment une « erreur » du sheriff BayTSP. ODEX ne se sent pas vraiment l'âme d'un justicier planétaire. Quel dommage! Voici ce qu'en dit DarkMirage:

UPDATE 20/11/2007: I have confirmations from an Odex employee that the whole thing was a mistake made by BayTSP. LOL. Show’s over, guys. Expect damage control to kick in soon.

UPDATE AGAIN: It seems that I wasn’t too clear. I have independent confirmation from a current Odex employee that the whole thing was a mistake. This is not based on any comments left in this entry, but rather first hand information from the employee himself.

Et dire que j'avais passé une heure à rédiger un commentaire à peu près équilibré sur l'affaire pour répondre à un journaliste de Singapour qui voulait couvrir le dossier. Pour la peine je vous le livre.

How do you feel about Odex taking its copyright enforcement battle overseas?

For now it sounds to me a little grandiose. There are doubts about ODEX's ability to fight a one-man crusade against illegal anime downloading on a global scale, and if they do not actually intend to fight it, then the e-mail threats they are sending out reek of hollow scare tactics.

Do you feel it is right for Odex to be doing this?

ODEX may or may not be entitled to try and enforce the worldwide copyrights of Japanese companies that are members of AVPAS, but I feel that the fan community would react less negatively to Japanese producers themselves taking action. ODEX, as a Singaporean distributor, is not really perceived as legitimate doing this, and all they are known for outside Singapore is their record of fining teenage anime fans for $3000.

Either way, what stirred a bit of a sensation in fan circles is ODEX targeting dowloaders of unlicensed anime, that is, anime for which the distribution rights are not licensed in their respective markets. The case I have reported on my blog is that of a French anime fan getting an ODEX C&D e-mail through his ISP for purportedly downloading a fan-subtitled episode of an anime series that is yet to be licensed in France. It is thus not available for local purchase, or anywhere at all considering that the only French translation in existence is made by fans.

That kind of fansubbing, as we call it, is certainly copyright infringement, but it has more or less been overlooked until now since it doesn't cause direct sales loss and probably contributes, as MIT professor Henry Jenkins points out, to the promotion of titles later to be made available. Japanese companies, and perhaps ODEX too, have every right to go after fansubs, and they would be well-advised to act according to their best financial interest, but as an anime fan, this is not a shift in policy that I'm anxious to see happening. Without fansubs or a decent online pay-per-view alternative, fans in Japan, the US, Singapore and France would not be watching the same shows at the same time, and that sense of a global community around anime is precious enough.