OnlinePhim.net Blog

You know you reach some kind of milestone in popularity when you get one of these. We’re not that big and we don’t have that many fans (or fanatics, like certain sites), so it was quite a surprise when we got one of these letters in the mail. We do get them once in awhile from fan groups, fanatics, and others - shall we say … “enthusiastic” individuals - but this is the first from a producer.

From: 9301, TVBLEGAL <tvblegal@tvb.com.hk>
Date: 2008/8/28
Subject: Copyright Infringement

Dear Sirs,
 
Re: Copyright Infringement
 
We are a well known television broadcast company in Hong Kong and the copyright owner of various television programmes produced by us.
 
It has recently come to our notice that one of you have been using your website http://www.onlinephim.net (”Website”) to provide streaming of our television programmes for public’s viewing without our authorization.
 
Details of your uploaded files which contain our copyrighted works can be found on the Website by accessing the following links:-
 
1.          Our copyrighted work name in English and Chinese: 
Unnatural Born Killer (十三密殺令)
Links of files containing infringed materials:-
http://www.onlinephim.net/1548.vid
 
2.          Our copyrighted work name in English and Chinese: 
A Change of Destiny (天機算)
Links of files containing infringed materials:-
http://www.onlinephim.net/624.vid
http://www.onlinephim.net/696.vid

and the list goes on for quite a bit. It was too long that it got cut off in the mail when we got it. They had to email it twice. Appearently, someone had spent some time going through our listings. Do they have interns in HK? Anyway, about 15 minutes later, we received another email. It simply states:

From: 9301, TVBLEGAL <tvblegal@tvb.com.hk>
Date: 2008/8/28
Subject: Recall: Copyright Infringement

9301, TVBLEGAL would like to recall the message, “Copyright Infringement”.

Umm. OK. You had us worried for a few minutes there. We have more than a handful of reasons why their claim is without merit. We have no idea which one they used, we’re just glad that someone checked again. They should have double-checked before they send out the letter in the first place, but we have to give them credit for a quick recall. An apology would be nice, but we doubt that they’re that nice. Well, it’s a good thing that we didn’t have to go through all the legal paperworks because it was a little pass 3am and our lawyer was happily chasing sheeps and counting butterflies.