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U.S. Announces Global Intellectual Property Plan
Angry_Admin writes "ZDNet is running a story about how the U.S. has announced new plans to expand its crackdown on intellectual-property infringement overseas. From the article:'One program would place intellectual property experts on the ground in regions where infringement is considered a concern. There they would work with overseas U.S. businesses and native government officials to advocate improved intellectual-property rights protection, according to a department fact sheet. Another program, called the Global Intellectual Property Rights Academy, would train foreign judges, enforcement officials and other stakeholders in international intellectual property obligations and best practices.'"
From TFA:
Another programme, called the Global Intellectual Property Rights Academy, would train foreign judges, enforcement officials and other stakeholders in international intellectual property "obligations" and best practices. The academy, overseen by the US Patent and Trademark Office, plans to convene in 24 sessions in 2006, paying all travel expenses for the foreign participants, who will come from many of the same areas where experts will be working.
I don't know what to even say to that.
The US Patent and Trademark Office has their own special issues. We are going to "train" people about their laws concerning intellectual property "obligations" and "best practices"?
Put me in charge of this damn thing. I'll use napalm to train these guys.
I'm speechless. I don't think I really want to live in this country (USA) any more.
crappy IP, you damn well
gonna do just this.
I miss the old days
when we could point to something
tangible we made.
Now, all we export
is bad movies, music, and
pain and suffering.
I'm surprised they didn't mention Canada. See, Canada currently has Life+50 copyright (while Europe, for instance, has Life+70); unless someone leans on them, the complete works of A. A. Milne (d. 1956) will become public domain there on January 1, 2007. So, given that Winnie the Pooh is a particularly large cash cow for Disney, who wants to bet that Canada mysteriously chooses to extend their copyrights to "harmonize" (or whatever the bullshit phrase is) their copyrights with ours, or with Europe's?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Could you explain that in a bit more detail? Who forces the US to export soybeans and machine tools to China? Oh, you mean because they pay us money for them?
Seriously, though, since the US is running up a 162 billion dolalr trade deficit with China, a trade embargo would be really successful. You'll stand in an empty WalMart way before anyone in China can't get raw materials. (Hint: they don't that much from the US. Machine tools come from Europe, mainly Germany, ICs are *exported* from China and Taiwan to the US, wood from Canada, oil from the Persian Gulf, and they can live without soy beans, or get them from Brazil).
Karma be damned!!
Look, W. I voted for you not once, but twice! What the hell are you trying to prove with this latest shenanigan? The U.S. already has a reputation for being a global bully who pushes its views on others. I don't agree with that across the board, but now you're doing nothing more than adding really flammable fuel to that particular fire.
Let me get this straight. We're going to train foreign individuals who are not in any way U.S. citizens or have any direct link to the U.S. in order to protect U.S. media corporation interests?? And exactly WHY are *MY* tax dollars (as well as the tax dollars of those who already hate you) going to protect the intellectual property of corporations that have enough money to do this on their own?
The simple fact is that if those other countries gave a rat's rear end about the IP rights of U.S. corporations, they would already be doing more to protect those rights or they would have come to us by now asking for help in accomplishing that task. It doesn't take a brain surgeon, which you are proving more and more that you are not, to realize that they most likely don't care. The only reason why they might care is that they wanted to avoid what you're now doing, thus making this whole thing out to be quite disingenuous.
We already look like selfish bullies to the rest of the world. This is just going to make it worse. Thanks a lot. I really hope that those other countries tell you to piss off with respect to this particular issue.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Are you implying that the current state of the trade deficit is somehow good? Sure some small ammount of money for each article we ship to china comes back to the US but when China ships the finished product back to the US to be sold they are taking a much larger chunk of change back to China than we got.