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. – Excerpts from ‘Kicking kids for profit?’.

I agree, absolutely. And I suppose, no company or person has gotten more hated in such a short period, with perhaps the exception of a particular Wee Shit Min. In fact, what Odex did must have been quite irritating when it actually got a mention on this Stooge Times article. (Do I sense a Durai in the making?)

Even when I went to watch Bourne Ultimatum yesterday, someone among the audience actually said, “Fxxk Odex!” On the Internet, it has spawned several anti-Odex movements, one of them being the ‘Recycle your Odex CDs’ movement.

I must say, “Freaking ‘well done’, Odex!”

Personally, I am no anime fan. When I heard references about anime downloaders being sued, my first impression was – Yet another ‘Kill Chicken Scare Monkey’ (杀鸡儆猴) Operation, and these are probably heavy downloaders who get what is deserved. In fact, I was expecting Odex to actually kick those who are not only heavy downloaders, but also stupid enough to re-distribute their downloaded stuff to everyone else! And if it was that, I would have thought they deserved whatever coming for them.

Then I read references that even those with financial difficulties are expected to settle with Odex. While I ain’t saying that when you are poor, you are allowed to steal, I would at least expect them to be given a warning instead. Odex, however, showed no compassion at all. From then on, I told myself I will NEVER buy anything carried by Odex.

Then I read on blogosphere that even a 9 year-old kid was ‘odexed’ (the term now used to indicate people who received the warning letter from Odex) and his parents were forced to pay several thousands in settlement. I originally took it with a pinch of salt, until I read it in the CNET article.

And that’s when I started paying attention to links received from angered friends, and pings of blog postings on ping.sg talking about this. I begin to read about the poor quality of Odex products and to my surprise, there’s even a Wiki entry on this. A lot of my friends were adamant that this isn’t all made up by angered fans, and a fellow blogger has even told me that I can look at how bad the quality is just watching those showed on TV. It begs the question if sales is bad because of downloading, or just simply the products are of shoddy quality, or that they are outdated.

I must salute the Internet community standing as one in this. I am surprised how fast dirty linen is brought to light. Such as this forum posting when he gloated about suing people:

But the worse of it all, is clause 6 in the settlement document. It reads:

Summary: ‘I hereby bend over so you can screw my ass again when you bway song’.

With this, the last shred of support I had for the Odex lawsuits vaporised faster than an atomic bomb can vaporise a city after I consider the people who got ‘odexed’ – people who are downloading not for profit, but for personal consumption. Will Stephen Sing also sue those who taped Odex distributed anime off the TV for future consumption?

Stephen Sing is definitely not helping in getting the understanding from the anime community, or even a layman like me. One could hardly in clear conscience think of this as a company doing it’s best to defend its interest. Stephen Sing (and Odex) is giving me an impression that I won’t want to talk about in public domain. After all, downloaders are sued, people threatening him are sued, and I am not surprised I might get sued for libel if I said the wrong things here.

Anyway, many people have also given their take on this, and some have advised what you can do to when you get ‘odexed’. One of the better suggestions is here.

By the way, I know everyone is angry. But threats like beating him up, raping his grandmother or burning his office / home to the ground on forums is no use. If Odex wanna be legalistic, so can we. Since the quality of their CDs is known to be bad, it simply means there are loads of legal evidence out there you as consumers can take it up to CASE against Odex. And that is only the first step. The next step would perhaps be letting the Japanese know just how badly Odex is screwing all the local anime fans, so they remove its right to distribute.

There is no need to resort to threats and get yourself into trouble. In fact, there is more joy in destroying Stephen Sing’s means to make more money. And taking away the distributorship from him is better than skinning him alive.