Copyright infringement (DMCA) notices for unlicensed anime

[Kyuusai]

Originally Posted by Edgewalker

Luckily I have a backwoods ISP that doesnt care what anyone does. Im not surprised in the slightest that comcast is pulling this, I hope I never move to an area were they are the only choice for high speed, because this isnt the first time they have earned a poor rep amoung bit torrent users.


Id be interested to see if this is the Japanese companies or American companies that have no announced that they own the license. Either way this wont be the death of fansubbing. Chances are, unless the internet becomes Big Brotherland, the worst that will happen is fansubbing will simply move deeper underground ( such as torrents from IRC bots ).

Most ISPs don't really care what you do. I guarantee, though, if your backwoods ISP gets a DMCA notice, they'll let you know. If they didn't, they'd be liable.

Torrents from IRC bots will only have limited use, though. If you can find the torrents, so can others. The ultimate answer will come from the ever-improving efforts of traffic anonymization which is actually available in the present. Keep in mind, though, like plain encryption, though, if you only protect PART of your traffic, that part is suspect.

[Alexandrite]

Hm. I have Comcast, but I don't know how worried I should be. The odds of being busted seem rather low, and until I'm sure that someone with the authority to do so has contacted Comcast about the issue, I don't believe there's really much that they can do about it.

At the very least, it means that people are now going to be a bit more selective about which trackers they use. The same files exist on multiple sites, so once one tracker has been deemed unsafe, people can just move to another one. Ultimately, there will be a loophole people will exploit.

[Skarredmind]

Originally Posted by guest

Such a specific department is usually closed on weekends. I think you should try on weekdays.

You mean like when I tried Friday morning?

[Skarredmind]

Originally Posted by Alexandrite

Hm. I have Comcast, but I don't know how worried I should be. The odds of being busted seem rather low, and until I'm sure that someone with the authority to do so has contacted Comcast about the issue, I don't believe there's really much that they can do about it.

At the very least, it means that people are now going to be a bit more selective about which trackers they use. The same files exist on multiple sites, so once one tracker has been deemed unsafe, people can just move to another one. Ultimately, there will be a loophole people will exploit.

The concern here is that its only Comcast sending these that we know of so far. Also if you can find a new tracker so can the people trying to shut it down... so moving on isn't a permanent solution.

[Trance]

Originally Posted by GHDpro

Over the past few days some disturbing news has reached the AnimeSuki email box: it seems several Comcast (an US internet provider) users have received DMCA ("stop illegal downloading") notices for unlicensed anime. It seems there might be some fact to the news reported in the Japan Asks America to Stop Illegal Net Releases of Anime thread after all.

So far I've seen DMCA notices about the following anime (Japanese anime studios in parenthesis):
- Suteki Tantei Labyrinth (Studio Deen)
- Gundam 00 (Sunrise / Mainichi Broadcasting)
- Seto no Hanayome (AIC / avex / Gonzo)
- Nagasarete Airantou (feel / Starchild)

As you can see there is no real pattern, other than that the anime was unlicensed and the people who received the notices were Comcast users.

I wonder if this is a trend, so I'd like to ask if anyone else has received a DMCA ("stop illegal activity") notice from their ISP or third party recently for downloading anime in the US or Europe? (the issue with Odex in Singapore is another story...)

Forum member aldraek's thread about this issue was deleted because he misinterpreted the notice as a the series being licensed (which is possible, but seems terribly unlikely considering not all of the series seem like likely license candidates to me). Here is the contents of his post, which shows how the DMCA notices look like:

wow, it seems that the US or Japanese Studios are getting serious

[guest]

Originally Posted by Skarredmind

You mean like when I tried Friday morning?

Ok, so they are playing dumb. I still think it is really strange.

If it is not comcast but someone else doing this, why isn't the comcast legal department responding? Maybe they are taking their time to investigate this? If an American company has licensed it but doesn't want to announce it yet, why comcast only? It seems that these people only have access to the comcast customer information. That or these licensing companies really hate comcast.

I am only guessing. Too many loopholes here.

[xzer0joker]

So, just to clarify, Comcast is only sending out cease and decist letters, not actually fining or sueing users?

[Kyuusai]

Originally Posted by xzer0joker

So, just to clarify, Comcast is only sending out cease and decist letters, not actually fining or sueing users?

Correct. That would be the place of the copyright holder or a representative, not an ISP.

[Apterous]

I submitted this to the slashdot firehose (vote it up, they love to hate Comcast there), and pretty much said that it's likely just a scare tactic since Comcast's recent tactics for scaring bittorrent downloaders are under federal investigation.

[Skarredmind]

You're right, the whole thing is fishy. Comcast isn't helping... with them being unwilling to help the question, is this them looking to save bandwidth or is this them just being bad at customer service.

Of course if its the real deal, why didn't they just send the notice to Anime Suki? If they don't want to announce the licensing, then couldn't they just have the original copyright holder ask AS to list it as licensed, or just cease and desist?

If they take it down that way, not an issue. Why make a move that would alienate potential customers?

[Buzer]

If I were using Comcast and got such a letter, I would probably start mirroring some oversea university's FTP server in my /dev/null 24/7. If they were to saturate that, I would just switch to another. I seriously doubt they are going to saturate whole FTP protocol (:

[ponbiki]

I have had comcast as an ISP for several years, and they heavily limit torrent use with network traffic shaping, etc. (although I still see acceptable up and down speeds). Also, in some west coast markets, they've been altering packets, so I wouldn't be surprised if it is another bandwith limiting tactic. I've have an old P4 that's dedicated to running torrents (which has included all of the aforementioned titles) nearly 24/7, so I'll wait and see if they're sending cease and decists in my market before I worry.

[WolfCoder]

Comcast is being stupid, they already have lots of lawyers after them with the whole complaint to the FCC thing.

[Skarredmind]

My issue is that comcast is the only high speed internet game in town... I wish Verizon would get FIOS here soon.

But the more I think about it the more it seems to me that Comcast may be involved in a bit of Shenanigans, since they didn't list who made the complaint, and won't contact me back. I think they are figuring that since it is a somewhat legit complaint that most people would just be scared and stop using their bandwidth.

Truthfully, it doesn't make sense to me, they like me paying for their service well enough, odd that they don't like me using it. Its like buying a TV that won't turn on during primetime. Truthfully, the only reason I have high speed is the fact that I can download with it. For regular website traffic and e-mail you don't need a whole lot more speed than dial-up will give you.

[Avatar_notADV]

There's a report on AnimeonDVD about a notice sent regarding Seto... from a company working for Odex. Might have to do with them.

[B-kun]

Glad I'm on verizon right now. Anyway, maybe Comcast is trying to crack down on fansub downloaders so that if the issue fires up in the future, Comcast won't be in hot water? It's a possibility. Either way, I know I'm avoiding scarywater.

[Malintex_Terek]

Originally Posted by mickal555

The beginning of the end of fansubbing?

There needs to be some kind of law/postulate/corollary stating that whenever a topic about fansubbing pops up, the probability of someone saying something in the spirit of "Wow, is this the beginning of the end of fansubbing?" increases exponentially as n increases, where n is the total elapsed time in seconds.

[Messerschmitt_Bf-109]

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

There's a report on AnimeonDVD about a notice sent regarding Seto... from a company working for Odex. Might have to do with them.

So those four are getting licensed in the future and they don't want to be in the middle of it, so Comcast is already starting to get harp the people on it.

[relentlessflame]

Exactly as Avatar said, I suspect this is BayTSP expanding the scope of their work for Odex. I bet all 4 of these shows are licensed by Odex for release in Singapore.

Originally Posted by Messerschmitt_Bf-109

So those four are getting licensed in the future and they don't want to be in the middle of it, so Comcast is already starting to get harp the people on it.

Well, Comcast doesn't care about licensing or whatever -- they just pass the notices they receive along to their users.

[WolfCoder]

I just found an article where Comcast it getting sued by actual people now along with the complaint to the FCC. Now I'm really baffled as to why Comcast is doing stuff themselves like this.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/...cking-traffic/