Oh dear, what have those crazy cats been up to now?
Well, it turns out that Comcast, who I am informed are an American Internet Service Provider, have been sending out Cease and Dissist orders to random people to stop them downloading (Japanese) anime series, which haven’t even been licensed for the American market. And the best part is, they didn’t even mention on behalf of which company they’ve sent the C&D orders. So, they’re using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA, American copyright laws) to protect the interests of an unidentified company that holds the non-existant rights. Makes sense? I thought not.
And it gets better, as BayTSP, a California based company that protects copyright laws, has recently sent a copyright infringement notice to a person in France for downloading an anime series that hasn’t been licensed in France, and have also disclosed the company that they’re sending it on the behalf of: Odex, who do own the rights, except in Singapore.
Why did Odex do this? Who knows.
In summery, an American company have asked a French person to stop downloading Japanese television shows on the behalf of a Singaporean company.
What does this all mean? I have absolutly no idea. How this pans out will be interesting to watch, and see exactly how national copyright laws hold up in foreign nations in the legally-grey area that is the internet.
And if you have no idea what I’ve been talking about for the past few minuets, don’t worry, I probably haven’t either.
