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Sober IT truths from the island-state

by Michael Tan, Singapore

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Kicking kids for profit?

Aug 16, 2007 11:02

Kids are being kicked for profit--that's a fair statement of public sentiments that's been riling up the Singaporeans these past few weeks. Not so much government policy, the crashing of stockmarkets around the world, long emails by the Prime Minister's son, or property prices.

Stephen Sing runs a company called Odex which distributes animes--animated movies. A quick check with some regulars reveals that his stuff is mostly old, outdated, and in VCD quality. So this guy embarks on a mission to track down people who downloaded animes and extract compensation from them.

1) He gets lists of downloaders' IP addresses from a tracker agency
2) Goes to the Singapore ISP to get the names and addresses of those people having that IP at the time of the download
3) Writes those people a letter asking for money while threatening them with legal action

So he does it and succeeds very well. Many of the people, including kids and their familes who are affected, did not have the resources or desire to fight a drawn-out court battle, and duly paid S$3,000 to S$5,000 thereabouts, some S$1,000. And he succeeds so well, he starts to gloat on the Web, at an anime forum. See here at the SCORD forum.

Here're the gloats in picture form credited to the Atarashii Prelude blog:

Wanna see Sing try unsuccessfully to talk his way out of the situation? See here and some more comedy here of users laughing at him: HWZ

See what Sing says:

Then see the dates:

Man, this guy takes down kids and gloats about it? That sucks, buddy! This guy makes himself look like a POS. More choice quotes here.

If you see a nine-year-old kid being kicked around on the streets, no matter that this nine-year-old is no saint, you'd rush to his defense for sure, hardly thinking about yourself. Right? Err... hello, am I right? That's the basis behind the public outrage, and the reporters' editorial ire, in this case.

I believe that, for kids, Sing should just have sent out a CEASE AND DESIST letter. That's a moral thing to do. Fleecing the kids and their parents for cash isn't the most moral thing to do, and smacks of greed while making one look like a bully.

The main point I'm trying to make: Whatever the kids did, the amorality of going after kids and trashing their families is not absolved by the legal rights and obligations which accrue from the alleged infringement.

By the way, after you've paid your dues to Odex, that's not the end of the story. Check out this document which one allegedly has to sign after paying the `compensation': The Settlement Document

And again, the powers that be, PLEASE, for the sake of progress and to stop companies from becoming pure legal hawks who earn money out of lawsuits and threats, CONSIDER A BLANKET LICENSING SCHEME where unlimited downloads are legal if one pays to obtain a blanket license. More on this in another post.

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Geekonomics

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Geekonomics says...
Hi there! I'm one of the new bloggers with CNET Asia just popping over to say hi! Nice posts you have btw :)

Aug 17, 2007 04:18

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About Michael Tan

Michael Tan is lucky enough not to have to choose between his job and his passion. He is the responsible for all aspects of developing new businesses and sourcing new productlines for a regional IT distribution company. He also oversees the company's legal affairs as General Counsel. In real life, he is a technology enthusiast, from both the fun and business viewpoint. The only choices he has to make are whether to play with his astro telescopes, his PC games, his Wii console, hit the track, tweak his car, or refine his biofilters, post his blogs, research for a new digicam, scour every forum to feed his habit further, play with his son… You can reach Michael at michaeltanyk@gmail.com ALL BLOGPOSTS ONLY REFLECT MICHAEL'S OPINIONS AND NOBODY ELSES'.