From what I understand, Singapore has for years had a problem with being a hub of illegal distribution in DVD’s and other things. It looks like a lot of what is going on there with this has to do with international pressure for the government and businesses to crack down on the distribution.

As I see it, Third World countries are not exactly in the scope of profitable markets for licensed anime. I mean, a lot of people can’t even afford basic things, why would they buy anime DVDs? There is a large anime fanbase in the Philippines (where I’m from), but on the whole only a few could sustain a hobby of buying anime DVDs. So basically we are ignored by the license holders. And another big thing: the 2 major networks here broadcast a lot of anime shows. So why buy when you can watch it on TV for free?
And here’s another stumbling block for would-be pirate catchers: the enforcement. Unless they want to spend a lot of money going after the downloaders themselves, nothing’s gonna change in this corner of the world for a while.

@sjohnson – I’ve read that is one of the major factors. It’s noticeable in that Indi and smaller profits don’t go after the illegal downloaders, but the MPAA not only goes after Americans but foreign nationals as well. There was that thing with the MPAA and the Pirate Bay a while back.

It has a lot to do with size and money. Where anime is concerned, I think your right. Imagine if ADV acted like the big motion picture studios and started suing thirteen year olds. I can see massive wave of anti-ADV bloggage. I mean, look what happened when they changed the name of Utawarerumono.

The situation may have changed, but when last I asked about it, a lot of the U.S. industry was actually (rightfully) worried that legal assaults like this on any kind of scale would alienate their already small core user-base.