The cel community has not been informed. That 
means us and (as this example shows) that means 
dealers too. These claims of exclusive ownership 
are being made with no proof given to back them 
up. If there is a list of "stolen" sequences, I'd 
be very interested to see it too. . . If there 
isn't a list, one apparently NEEDS to be made. 
However - no matter if a list exists somewhere or 
not - since no one here has any way to know what 
might or might not be from a "stolen" sequence, 
then the common collector can only assume that a 
dealer who is legitamate is selling legitamately 
obtained cels.

And without proof to the contrary, I will NOT 
even entertain the notion that Yann is trying to 
sell things obtained from questionable or 
illegitamate sources. (If you think about it, it 
would be very against his best interest to do 
that, since doing so might call into quesiton the 
legitamacy of ANY of the other cels he has sold 
or has for sale.)

In my OPINION (please note the term), the fact 
that we have *not* seen a list of these supposedly
stolen sequences is suspicious. It leads me to 
believe (a mental OPINION formed from examining 
the facts I have in front of me) that the reason 
there *is* no list, is because there is still 
some dispute somewhere about whether or not these 
cels *really are* stolen. The only way there can 
be a dispute about the "stolen" status of the 
cels, is if it is UNCLEAR who exactly IS the 
actual original owner.

I want to see proof that Anime Link owns every 
single cel from the whole damn movie. If there 
were a ownership issue being investigated why 
would the shops in Japan be allowed to sell the 
cels in question before the issue was resolved? I 
know nothing about Japanese law, but temporarily 
freezing the sale of the cels until the matter is 
cleared up would seem to only make sense - and 
yet (to our knowledge) this has not happened.

Or maybe there is some worry about what the 
public opinion might be if collectors DID find 
out for certain that Anime Link does have a 
monopoly on EVERY single VHD movie cel out there. 
Just from the looks of this thread alone, I get 
the feeling the reaction would NOT be a positive 
one.

Many Sharp Smiles,
--Drac