As quoted from ANN and Animesuki Forums,

users received a “Notice of Claim of Copyright Infringement” from their Internet service providers late last week for distribution of anime without an announced license from a North American company. The majority of the notices (which are similar to an unrelated one archived at the Chilling Effects website) reportedly came from Comcast, a Internet service provider in the United States

A French website reported that end users received an email letter sent directly from Singaporean licensor Odex regarding a French fansub of the Ouran High School Host Club anime series on a French BitTorrent site during last week also.

So far DMCA notices have been reported involving the following anime (Japanese anime studios in parenthesis) [fansubgroup in brackets]:

- Suteki Tantei Labyrinth (Studio Deen) [OOM]
- Gundam 00 (Sunrise / Mainichi Broadcasting) [Conclave/Mendoi]
- Seto no Hanayome (AIC / avex / Gonzo) [?]
- Nagasarete Airantou (feel / Starchild) [Ayako]
- Shugo Chara! (Satelight) [Raw]
- Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai (Studio Deen) [Philantrophy]

Animesuki’s forums have an official post about this issue. Click here to know more.

What says you?

Credits to choco

The days of banning fansubbed animes has sprung again, but this time Comcast is attacking Bittorrent Users. Over at animesuki, a popular site that delivers updates on bittorrents, the users that are using Comcast as their Internet provider have been getting DMCAs notices for unlicensed anime.

The notices have been involving a few animes such as:

• Suteki Tantei Labyrinth
• Gundam 00
• Seto no Hanayome
• Nagasarete Airantou
• Shugo Chara!
• Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai

This is a notice that aldraek, one of animesuki’s users, had gotten.

So I grabbed the first episode of Gundam 00 a few days ago just to check it out and see if it was worth watching… (unfortunately not something that grabbed my attention after watching it) and today, very surprisingly, I got an e-mail from Comcast about it. Anyone care to comment? I know that downloading anime is in the grey-area legally if it’s not been licensed in your region, but I also know that Gundam 00 is not licensed in region 1. Can anyone care to tell me what’s going on? Maybe some advice on how to handle this? This is the FIRST letter of any kind that I’ve received regarding this nature… Interesting fact was that I had uTorrent running with encryption on, guess it’s not all that cracked up.

Anyway, here’s a copy of the e-mail with sensitive information removed:

From: Comcast Network Abuse [mailto:abuse-noreply@comcast.net]
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 4:23 AM
To: Comcast Internet Subscriber
Subject: Notice of Claim of Copyright Infringement.

Notice of Action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Abuse Incident Number: NA000000——-
Report Date/Time: Wed, 14 Nov 2007

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Subscriber:

Comcast has received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized
agent, reporting an alleged infringement of one or more copyrighted works
made on or over Comcast’s High-Speed Internet service (the ‘Service’). The
copyright owner has identified the Internet Protocol (’IP’) address
associated with your Service account at the time as the source of the
infringing works. The works identified by the copyright owner in its
notification are listed below. Comcast reminds you that use of the Service
(or any part of the Service) in any manner that constitutes an infringement
of any copyrighted work is a violation of Comcast’s Acceptable Use Policy
and may result in the suspension or termination of your Service account.

If you have any questions regarding this notice, you may direct them to
Comcast in writing by sending a letter or e-mail to:

Comcast Legal Response Center
Comcast Cable Communications, LLC
650 Centerton Road
Moorestown, NJ 08057 U.S.A.
Phone: (856) 317-7272
Fax: (856) 317-7319
E-mail: dmca@comcast.net

For more information regarding Comcast’s copyright infringement policy,
procedures, and contact information, please read our Acceptable Use Policy
by clicking on the Terms of Service link at http://www.comcast.net.

Sincerely,
Comcast Legal Response Center

Copyright work(s) identified in the notification of claimed infringement:

Evidentiary Information:

Notice ID: —
Asset: Gundam 00
Protocol: BitTorrent
IP Address: xx.xx.xx.xx
DNS: xx.xx.xx.comcast.net
File Name:
[Conclave-Mendoi]_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_00_-_01v2_[1280x720_H.264_AAC][871FCBC2
].mkv
File Size: 361374904
Timestamp: 12 Nov 2007 04:56:59 GMT
Last Seen Date: 12 Nov 2007 04:56:59 GMT
URL: http://tracker.radicand.org:5190/announce
Username (if available):