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Ukraine Tries to Avoid U.S. Trade Restrictions
GMFTatsujin writes: "In response to the threat of US trade sanctions, the Ukraine parliament hastily passed an anti-piracy bill aimed at reducing the bootlegged CD problem. I especially liked this quote from this Wired article: '"We are deeply disappointed that Ukraine has not passed an effective law and instead is rushing through an ineffective law," said Eric Schwartz, vice president and special counsel of the International Intellectual Property Alliance." This is a follow-up to our story of two weeks ago about Ukraine not complying with U.S. demands for 'an optical media licensing regime.'
who has a problem with the phrase "optical media licensing regime"?
US Gov't-sponsored monopolistic behavior anyone?
What's that smell? Ah, that's my karma burning...
Yes, you certainly don't want to confuse the Ukranian law with our highly effective crack squad of trained monkeys hammering out legislation. OUR government officials completely understand the implications of their laws.
Never confuse volume with power.
This law, or any law the Ukraine makes on CD piracy, is a law on paper only. The gov't is more concerned with supplying food and utilities to their people than whether the RIAA is going to receive their profits. To place trade sanctions on a country because they're harboring terrorists or committing genocide is one thing, to deny a country supplies because they might sell the CD's they burn is absurd.
So does the US impose sanctions on every nation that refuses to dance to the RIAA/MPAA's tune? At what point does this become counter-productive for a country that's also currently trying to keep an anti-terror coalition together?
the US gov't isn't the backbone of this whole manipulation, it's the RIAA (and the international IP association). the US gov't is just doing it's usual job by taking lots of money from the lobby. someone's gotta snag those mo-fo's into some quake action and show 'um what fraggin is all about.
Honestly, considering the fact that the Ukraine and other parts of the Old Soviet Union are so poor... I'd say the only Cds that they are going to be burning are the ones to keep their homes warm. IF (and this is the big one), and I mean IF they can even get optical media.
Besides, what does a computer with a burner cost these days... three years average Russian salary? More for the Ukraine? Honestly, these people cannot afford the wholesale piracy that they say is happening.
This is B.S. hardball. After all, what is the consequence of letting them burn? More Russians singing pop songs in broken English?
Think if you were the Ukrainian authorities... and you really, really, really, need capital. This is not even a concern to you. Some foreign country starts yammering about CD copyrights? YOU'VE GOT STARVING PEOPLE. THE BEST OFF LOOK LIKE THE POOREST IN THE REST OF THE WESTERN WORLD. I am a US patriot, but I would tell them to go pick a bigger issue to restrict my trade over.
Ever heard of "The punishment shall fit the crime?"
Sure, it would be fine if the US refused to export CD's to the US, but placing totally unrelated trade embargos on them? Come on now, give me a break. This is a blatant abuse of power, period.
No Comment.
Apparently Western corporate profits really are more important than 3rd world lives to those who are currently in power.
This is exactly the ethos our government has been subscribing to, openly since the Reagan era of the 1980's and perhaps much longer than that.
It isn't just "third world" lives, either. American profits are deemed much more important than American lives (e.g. Mansanto deliberately polluting an American town's groundwater as recently as a few short years ago, killing many people, maiming many more, and not a single board member, employee, or shareholder will ever see the inside of a jail cell).
We made a conscious choice as a society to subscribe to a system which values wealth above everything else, and rewards greed above every other character trait. Worse, we've decided corporations are to be treated as people, with all of their rights and none of their responsibilities, exacerbating an already poor cultural choice.
Is it really any surprise at all that the natural consiquence of such a system, based upon such a skewed ethical premise, is that Corporate Profits are considered to be vastly more important the human lives?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Not only that, but then when we tell them, they'll point at some other country we hate and tell us that it's okay because they are doing it too.
A:"Why do you hate us so much?"
SJ:"your country routinely disregards human life in favour of petty economic interests, and tends to disregard laws, both it's own, and international laws as well."
A:"So does China and Iraq!"
Seriously, read just about any "Here is why we hate America" chat, and this will happen. It's happened on slashdot quite a few times in recent memory.
It's been a long time.
"Forced" is a bit of a strong word for that. Force implies Microsoft has got troops at computer assemblers pointing guns at people. Microsoft simply made it a condition for trade. If you want to distribute Windows on systems, you must put Windows on every box, and and you can't dual-boot with another operating system. And you must put Microsoft icons over other competitors on the desktop of users. And so on. If you want to trade with Microsoft, then you have to adapat to these rules. Don't want those agreements? Fine, be independent, and have no right to distribute Windows. If you come back begging to Microsft a year from now, they might let you back in (at double the licensing fees).
In 1775 another country was trying to impose its laws in the interest of an oligarchy of corporations monopolizing luxury items.
Has the US passed a law that effectively reduces CD bootlegging?
Sure, they have the laws, but everyone and their brother seems to be pumping out MP3 based cd's these days.
~ now you know
> The 9/11 bombers hated us for reasons that we have no way of alterring... unless one considers it acceptable for us to give up our equal treatment of women, our freedom to NOT be religious, and yes, even our indulgences in Hollywood entertainment and other things that affluence brings.
You've either spent too much time listening to recent rhetoric, or not enough time boning up on history. The U.S. being rich or not being a Muslim nation has very little to do with what happened on September 11th. For the most part, Osama bin Laden hates the U.S. for three reasons, in no particular order:
1.) We're closely allied with Israel.
2.) We've had a military presence in Saudi Arabia (his homeland and what he considers Muslim holy land) for decades.
3.) After training and equipping him and his assistants in 1980-1983 so they could fend off the Russian invasion, we pulled out of Afghanistan, leaving the Muhajadin (sp?) (which became the Taliban) poorly equipped to fight a civil war with the other Afghan factions that lasted to the present day (they were still fighting the Northern Alliance when the attacks occurred).
If you think that our affluence and our non-Muslimism is such a factor, you're not paying attention. It's easy to say that they hate us because they're jealous or because they're simply religious zealots, but it's wrong, and such myopia only serves to prevent us from considering how we can really change things in the world.
Virg
I agree that Russia falls in the free world, but do we? There is a travel advisory on the US for Russian computer specialists.
Totalitarian economies are rarely very strong... a "League of Evil Nations" with Iraq, mainland China, North Korea, Libya, and other pariahs would be brutal but not very powerful.
I can totally see how you thought I meant a "league of evil nations." I meant somthing more like a progressivly growing aliance specificly designed to exclude us based on our law anbd practice. If the US becomes to much of a bully, wouldn't it be simpler for say the EU to just ignore us in it's dealings with Russia. It's just a few pen strokes away.
The next big war will be over Intellectual property. As manufacturing costs become neglegable, designs, plans, art, bulk raw materials and land will the only things worth anything. When the entire economy revolves around Ip law and IP law is corrupt, fudalism prevails and "free" countries like Russia might just square off with us on our Human rights abuses.
IP is not a bad idea, but the monoplies it produces must be much more limited. There is way to much disparity, and the gap is growing, quickly.
Software patents look a little scarrier now don't they.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Come and get us. We're right here next to Canada, so it should be easy to find us.
Mosquitos should be swatted. So come on, mosquito, call all your friends and have a field day with the U.S. I'm afraid you'll find yourselves in a world of hurt.
Be careful who you incite. Make no mistake that a man who has lost his family would not hesitate to take out a city around him(ummm...not me, I'm just pointing out that your attitude is ultimately self-destructive).
Mousquitos can carry malaria. Be wary, or you may find yourself, and your blind ego, in a world where pain is the least of your problems.
It's been a long time.
Microsoft doesn't have to use guns (if it were legal and they could spin the PR, I think they might...) to ruin someone's business all they have to do is threaten to do so.
Ukraine is the big loser of the cold war. Economy ground into the dirt, far beyond. Ukraine used to be close to the same standard of living as the USA, so this is actually a good way of imagining things...
So imagine this happened to the USA... Prices of everything go up ten times. But wages stay the same. Imagine this lasting for 10 years. Honestly, imagine how the USA would look. Educated, intelligent, hardworking and motivated people forced onto the streets, to beg and steal just to eat. The entire world collectively indifferent. And now... this? I'm sorry, but in my judgement, taking away even the joy and escape of music from such a hurting people, is evil.
In my opinion, the RIAA and the US Government should do the exact opposite. Impose on Ukraine, and all other impoverished nations, a moratorium on copyright inringement enforcement. When the economies recuperate, and approach decent western levels of development, where Windows 2k doesn't cost half a year's salary, then impose those restrictions.
To the USA, there are no people, no humans, and no human rights. There are only consumers. I am a firm believer in democracy and capitalism, but this has gone too far.
my 2 kopecks.
Minor nitpick: we're not dumb enough to go to war over something as stupid as IP. We'll first invent some flimsy excuse and then demonize the other country's leaders, THEN we'll go to war.
What do you want to fight over? George Bush Sr.'s oil well's in Kuwait just got taken over or the evil Saddam Hussein is invading poor tiny Kuwait? Noriega isn't following CIA orders like a good puppet dictator or American sailors were brutally murdered by evil Panamanian forces?
We'll believe whatever the TV tells us, as long as they're telling us that the other side is TRULY evil.
[o]_O
A law by itself, is rarely effective. It's the enforcement of the law that can make things work. Sure, 20 laws on anti-piracy measures can pass in any given country, I am just wondering how would they go around about enforcing them and actually making them work.
Free Trade between nations is a fairly recent thing (and a good idea, but that's another issue). The U.S. is telling Ukraine that unless Ukraine behaves in the modern manner (not pirating intellectual property), the U.S. will not allow Ukrain to make some of its export wihout or with low tarriff, but instead must pay tarriffs (as has been traditionally required). That's it.
That tariffs hurt the receiving country more then the shipping country, or at least more than is collected, is another economics issue entirely
hawk