AllofMP3.com May Hinder Russia Joining WTO

gitana writes "The New York Times is reporting that American trade negotiators may demand the shutdown of AllofMP3.com as a condition of Russia joining the World Trade Organization." From the article: "Music industry officials say AllofMP3, which first came to their attention in 2004, is a large-scale commercial piracy site, and they dismiss its claims of legality. "It is totally unprecedented to have a pirate site operating so openly for so long," said Neil Turkewitz, executive vice president of the Recording Industry Association of America, who is based in Washington ... AllofMP3.com says on the site that it can legally sell to any user based in Russia and warns foreign users to verify the legality within their countries for themselves. The site features a wide selection of Russian music, but is written in English with prices listed in United States dollars."

Comments

Cannot legislate morals...

[alfs boner]

You cannot legislate away theft. If you want to curb it, you have to remove the economic incentive to steal. For music/video, you do that by making it easier/cheaper to buy the content from a legitimate distributor than to copy it. The "man" thinks they can also do this by limiting the quality of the output from illegitimate sources (using onerous copy protection systems that probably won't work anyway). They need to believe this if they have any hope of maintaining their rather excessive markups on their product. I am of the opinion that they'll kick and scream some more and eventually mostly give up and use pricing to fight piracy. But we'll see....

Re:Cannot legislate morals...

[babbling]

Copyright infringement isn't theft. Anyone claiming it is automatically loses all credibility.

Re:Cannot legislate morals...

[EvilFrog]

Stop being pedantic. You know what they meant. Semantic nonsense over what is and isn't theft doesn't change the argument, just the verbage. Take every instance of "theft" and replace it with "copyright infringement" and the arguments will all be the same.

Besides, "theft" is a fairly wide definition that applies to more than just larceny. In US the theft of services is indeed considered theft and charged as larceny. If something as non-tangible as services can be stolen, surely the definition can extend to intellectual property such as music.

I've copied plenty of music, and my doing so has led me to the legitimate purchase of lots of music I would have never otherwise. Overall I'd say that the free distribution of music in many ways helps the artist more than it hinders. That does not however, change the laws. Copyright infringement is still illegal, whether it's theft or not. The whole "copyright infringement isn't theft" thing seems to be a crutch of an argument people fall on to ignore the issue.

Re:Cannot legislate morals...

[babbling]

It's not a crutch to ignore the issue, it is a clarification of what we are discussing. There are important differences between copyright infringement and theft. There are entirely separate laws dealing with each of them. In sensible countries, one (copyright infringement) is a civil offence, and the other (theft) is a criminal offence. You cannot seriously claim that they are the same thing without dismissing a whole slew of important differences.

You stated that you have copied music before. Does that mean that you consider yourself a thief? Is the only thing that is stopping you from robbing stores the increased risk of being caught?

Re:Cannot legislate morals...

[servognome]

In economics, things have value because they are scarse. Bits are not scarse.

Original bits are scarce. The problem is there is no good economic method yet to reconcile high costs to create with low cost to reproduce.

So the RIAA puts special limitations to make it scarse.

No the government elected by the people makes special limitations to create artificial scarcity of reproductions. You can say the politicians are in the pocketbook of the RIAA, but that is more a reflection of an apathetic voting populace who only cares about which politician is on TV most (if they even vote at all).

This artificially raises the prices, and as anyone who has taken a basic economics course, is not efficient. ANY artificial restriction to a market makes it less efficient than free trade. So yes, copyright is an anti free trade aberration.

Yes, it does artifically raise prices, which at the same time artificially raises the number of suppliers. There is a positive effect on society to have more inventors, musicians, authors, moviemakers. Not saying that currently things are balanced (copyright has been extended too long, limitations of fair use, etc), but I don't agree that copyright is completely bad for society.

Talent on the other hand IS scarse, but that's hardly the issue here.

I never understood this. If music protected by the RIAA sucks, why do you care if you can get free access to it?

Re:Cannot legislate morals...

[cliffski]

The economics surey dictate that everyone should pay for what they consume. By this system we encourage artists to produce content that people like. If the people who make content arent paid, even if they are wildly popular, then the market cannot react to demand. Thats not good news. I'm glad Half Life 2 made money, that sends a signal to game makers that this is what gamers want.
If we had been able to download high quality DRM-free copies of the first ever series of star trek, and none of us had paid a penny for them, then the show would have made a huge loss. No series II, no Next Gen, No Voyager. Apply this to whatever music / movie / book you really like.

DRM sucks, but people enjoying content they dont pay for also sucks. In a capitalist system, its the payment in dollars from the consumer to the producer that enables the market to function. Take that away and the system will mean no more production.

Until now, its been academic, because with physical goods, free-riding wasnt possible. Now we live in an age where it IS possible for people not to pay for what they consume in some industries. There has to be a solution. I think DRM is a crap solution, but unfortunately I can't think of a better one that actually works, and removes the free-rider problem.

if it seems too good to be true

[yagu]

If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.

Long ago as Napster faded into the sunset (in its old form, at least) a friend turned me onto allofmp3. Promised me it was only $.10 a track and the selection was amazing. I went there, I signed up, I think I even may have purchased a few tracks.

But the more I looked at it, the more uneasy I felt about how legitimate it could be. This latest story confirms my hunch... they aren't. This other related article from Wired goes into further detail. Apparently allofmp3 is already offering downloads for the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers' as are tracks from the latest Shakira album (you can tell I'm from the vinyl age, still calling them "albums"). The prices are 1/10 the iTunes rates, and while the article doesn't say, it would seem allofmp3 has no contract or agreement to sell these tracks.

(From the Wired article: "..., World music downloading leader iTunes charges a fixed 99 cents per song, but the Russian site offers tracks for a 10th of that price. Songs from the Red Hot Chili Peppers' new double album, Stadium Arcadium, cost between 10 and 16 cents. The whole of Oral Fixation, Vol. 2, the latest album by Colombian pop star Shakira, can be had for just $1.40...., ")

I like what allofmp3 has tried to do, offer a vast array of music at much more reasonable prices than the rest of the world, but it does them, and the rest of us who would demand a more fair distribution model irreparable damage. The more "we" are labeled as criminals by our own actions, the more fodder for their argument. And, the more likely DRM becomes more onerous and intrusive and constraining.

Also interesting is the focus of the article, the barrier for Russia to enter into the World Trade Organization. I couldn't care less about that aspect, it seems a big stick and out of proportion that Russia should bear... but that's political schtick. I think the even bigger issue is this has put allofmp3 on everybody's radar, which of course means the RIAA, Congress, progress (i.e., the opposite of congress), etc. And if allofmp3 is selling rogue mp3s, it's bad for the anti-DRM community.

It's an eternal adage, and how true it always seems to be: "If it seems to good to be true, it probably is."

Re:if it seems too good to be true

[mkro]

I like what allofmp3 has tried to do, offer a vast array of music at much more reasonable prices than the rest of the world, but it does them, and the rest of us who would demand a more fair distribution model irreparable damage. The more "we" are labeled as criminals by our own actions, the more fodder for their argument. And, the more likely DRM becomes more onerous and intrusive and constraining.

Okay, I'm having a bit of a problem with this one. People should stop buying this, show that we all are mature and responsible adults and get it from "their" sites, and then the restraints will slowly go away? How the hell is that going to happen? Isn't that like asking Rosa Parks to get to the back of the bus and behave so whitey can understand black people are civilized? In Norway homosexuality was forbidden by law until 1972. Activism and outright breaking the law changed it. If people had simply complied, nothing would have changed. Now, I don't want to offend anyone by saying this is more important than gay and black rights, but I think the analogy itself is valid.

Re:if it seems too good to be true

[TubeSteak]

AllofMP3 asserts its legality by citing a license issued by a collecting society, the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society.

In most countries, the collecting societies that receive royalty payments for the sale or use of artistic works need reciprocal agreements with overseas copyright holders...

According to Russia's 1993 copyright law, however, collecting societies are permitted to act on behalf of rights holders who have not authorized them to do so. Collecting societies have thus been set up to gather royalties for foreign copyright holders without their authorization...

The result is that numerous organizations in Russia receive royalties for the use of foreign artistic works, but never pass on that money to the artists or music companies

So, either the NY Times incorrectly summarized the way things work in Russia, or All of MP3 is doing nothing wrong & the RIAA should be going after the collecting societies.

On a seperate rant: I guess the third possibility is that Russia's copyright laws are morally wrong and need to be changed. Hmmm... how could the RIAA & their Euro counterparts accomplish this?

I know!!1 By inviting Russia to join the WTO!.

For those of you who don't know, the WTO is like one big Westernized cluestick handcrafted by corporations w/the support of their (large) governments.

The RIAA/MPAA/Software industry would love to get Russia into the WTO and Eastern European (former Soviet) Countries into the EU, later into the WTO. Once they accomplish that, they can use their handcrafted cluestick to beat the laws of those countries into a nice compliant & westernized form.

Those untapped 'markets' can only be tapped if the legal, political and enforcement landscape is appropriate for the making of large quantities of money.

Re:if it seems too good to be true

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really even see how this can be called a loophole.

They're complying with all applicable laws. And yes, contrary to the fud, the artists do get a cut. At least the ones that bother registering with the Russian authorities in order to collect do. Which is, you know, the law there. So how is this a loophole?

The RIAA doesn't like Russian copyright law, we understand that, but why should they think their opinion even matters here? The Russian Federation is a sovereign state, their laws are made by the Russian Duma, not the US House. If the RIAA want the Russian Federation to guarantee their lazy butts an income like the US House does, they'll have to start paying them bribes too. Why is this so hard for them to understand?

Re:if it seems too good to be true

[DrEldarion]

It's funny. People hate the RIAA because they take 99% of the money, and nearly nothing goes to the artist. However, when a quasi-legal site comes along that does the exact same thing, it's idolized.

Gotta love hypocrisy!

Just as well

[kimvette]

Russia is better off going isolationlist and not joining the WTO. Look at the mess we have here in America as an example. Our politicians have an incessent need to butt their noses in everyone else's business, despite the citizen base not wanting them to do so. We (meaning our government) has no right to tell other countries how to handle their business at all. Our influence should end at the border and tariffs, unless assistance is a) explicitly requested from others and b) supported/approved by citizens.

Don't listen to the US. Show a backbone like so few other countries have and tell Duhbya to fuck off already. Don't cooperate with the current administration one iota; wait and see what the 2008 election brings. Hopefully the next administration will be far less corrupt.

Re:Just as well

[Cyberax]

Why was the parent marked as a flaimbait?

I live in Russia and I don't really want my country to join the WTO, and it's a very widespread attitude here. WTO imposes too much unpopular restrictions (for example, we'd have to raise internal prices on gas and petrol).

Re:Just as well

[billoday]

Seriously... I remember complaining about American IP laws and being told, "if you don't like it, move somewhere else." The US has already subverted most of Europe, Eastern Asia, and pretty much every other developed country (at least on the books). So where should I move?

Re:Just as well

[shutdown -p now]

Indeed, and the way Russian economy has been managed so far was by the Western recommendations. Especially in early 90s which brought the economy to what it is now.

A one world corporate government

[bigsexyjoe]

The WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF are much bigger threats to self-determination and national sovereignty than the U.N.

Our copyright system is very peculiar, but very good for business so it will be imposed on the whole world.

"It is totally unprecedented to have a pirate site operating so openly for so long," said Neil Turkewitz

It is only piracy according to our intellectual property laws, which have very little philosophical or pragamtic basis.

Dear US citizen,

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is running your country?

Perfect fit.

[Znork]

"The result is that numerous organizations in Russia receive royalties for the use of foreign artistic works, but never pass on that money to the artists"

With the way a lot of the music industry works, it looks like they'll fit right in.

"These collecting agencies are thieves and frauds because they accept money while pretending to represent artists", said Eric Baptiste

Yeah, well, pot, meet kettle, you two will get along fine.

communism

[wwmedia]

this is a country where for 70 years everyting belonged to the public domain, this whole american copyright stuff is a bit alien

anyways russians can always play the energy card, switch off gas to whole of europe and watch the shit hit the fan ;) by that stage WTO will be begging the russians to join

Re:communism

[HardCase]

anyways russians can always play the energy card, switch off gas to whole of europe and watch the shit hit the fan

Yeah, and they could also cut off their noses to spite their faces. I don't think that allofmp3.com is going to replace the lost revenues of Russia's number one export.

Why RIAA cannot demand closing this site

[zpodcaster]

Everybody's opionion is that all this site sells is pirated music from the US. This is wrong. This site sells completely legal Russian music and audio otherwise unavailable in the United States or Europe: to 10 to 30 million Russian diaspora abroad. The problem with RIAA demands is that they demand a closing of a completely legitimate resource for such content for all of us, Russian speakers forced to look at empty shelves of RIAA storefronts and desperate to find hits of Russian music. The model of selling songs by burning them on bulky things called DVDs or CDs is completely dead, when you look at it from the prospective of a Russian speaking teenager trying to find a Russian 2005-2006 hit in the stores owned by RIAA in the US. There are none. Typically this stores sells some junk from the last century, so the only place we can get that music is from the sites like allofmp3.com. Russian showbusiness is booming now: have you seen any Russian movie from 2005-2006 in the stores owned by MPAA/RIAA? If Hollywood can't make decent movies for the last 5 years, it doesn't mean it's like this everywhere in the world. So, to cut it short: no: Russian courts are right, ignore RIAA.

Disturbing Trend

[Mateo_LeFou]

**AA have obviously decided to go full speed ahead, push the envelope a bit. See if their interests can be made to trump even national sovereignty. I put it at 50/50 whether the "civilized world" will accept this.

Maybe the US...

[abigsmurf]

Should stop imposing illegal tarrifs on goods from other countries before it starts making demands?

The only competition is in lossy formats

[Overzeetop]

Let's take a look at a sample album (randomly picked - I'm not a DC fan):

Dixie Chicks: Taking The Long Way
#tracks: 14
Cost to purchase in crappy/lossy 192kb MP3 or AAC: $1.87
Cost to purchase in good lossy 320kB MP3 or AAC: $3.12
Cost to purchase lossless (flac, in this case): $8.78

Cost to purchase from Amazon, (lossless), with case, disc, and liner notes: $9.98

The difference between lossless at AllofMP3 and buying a physical disc is very small. It's not much of a bargain, quite honestly, to get the product from AllofMP3. It would make sense that to get a digital copy of the album from a US supplier would be less expensive than the physical article. Except, for some reason, it isn't. Somehow, the degraded quality copies cost more than the physical version here in the US (I'm assuming that iTunes is still 99c/track, or $13.86 for the whole album). They should be noticably less expense. That's what we were told when CDs were more expensive than cassette tapes: the CD, although less expensive to produce, provides a higher quality sound and therefore commands a premium price.

Once again, the RIAA seems to be paranoid that they might lose a stranglehold on the distribution system (i.e.: would have to compete).

I'm not saying that AllofMP3 are totally innocent here - they are just as guilty of exploiting the system as, say, the oil companies are of exploiting the increase in demand for oil, or small business owners buying a $50,000 Ford King Ranch pickup truck and writing it off on their taxes.

For the record

[Anonymous Coward]

The site features a wide selection of Russian music, but is written in English with prices listed in United States dollars."

That's a bit misleading. The truth is it has both a Russian and English language option. First time users are able to select the langauge of their choice.

I'll be one of the first to admit that I buy songs from allofmp3.com. So far I've loaded my account with 10 dollars twice, and have maybe a couple bucks of that left. I have, from time to time, actually downloaded some of the Russian songs (I find MC Vspyshkin to be rather funny and I can't even understand a word he says, it just popped up as a recommended 'similar artist' one day). But, primarily, I download music that that otherwise would be considered piracy.

Why do I do it? Simple. The alternatives suck. Itunes has come a long way, I'll admit, but I do not want DRM on my music. I do not want restrictions on how and where I can listen to my music for which I've spent perfectly good money. Allofmp3.com not only offers mp3, which unlike itunes songs is practically universal, as well as a wide-range of other formats including *lossless* formats.

When the music industry wisens up and offers a real alternative, a low-priced non-drm way for people to buy music off the internet, then I will switch over. But as long as they keep trying to fight the market and refuse to give the market what it wants, they will never see another one of my consumer dollars. It's called capitalism and the easiest way to put the pirates out of business is to offer a legal alternative. It's ridiculous and anti-capitalist to refuse to sell the product I want to buy then to cry foul when I find someone who will sell it to me.

Wow

[nicklott]

The RIAA is now influencing US foreign policy! Scary country...

Re:Wow

[Strangefolker]

Agreed. A US special interest group having any sway over foreign policy is scarey as hell. It's also self-defeating. If Russia joined the WTO the WTO may have jurisdiction to say "these areas of these buisness' are acting in an illegal or non-competetive way" and could do something about it. That's the spirit of these type of groups. Human rights is a valid reason for not allowing someone to join something that would benefit all involved, but to not allow a country as large as Russia because of a small (globally) company that operates within it's borders selling music is silly at best and idiotic at worst. What happened to politics.

Priorities?

[vertinox]

I dunno... You'd think if they would deny Russia entry to the WTO... It would be... I duno... Say... Their support of Iran's nuclear program and their threat to veto any resolution against them?

Although, maybe pirated MP3s are much more of an existensial threat than nuclear weapons.

No it would not be the same.

[plasmacutter]

Why not just replace the word republican with "nazi", democrat with "commie", "homosexual" with "fag", white with "racist", or black with "nigger" too. oh yeah, that is unacceptbile.. how hyppocritical.

what they meant was to slander the idea of fair use and imply that it is immoral to do what the AHRA allows us to do in copying music with home recording devices and handing the tape off to friends. Just because it involves silicon and wires instead of dual cassette decks and magnetized ribbons doen't make it any different.

They continue to use this term to slander and demonize vast swaths of innocent people and innocent actions in their greedy pursuit of control, and do not have a right to use such slanderous language.

I Disagree

[Famatra]

"Take every instance of "theft" and replace it with "copyright infringement" and the arguments will all be the same."

Um, no. Depriving someone of their property seems very immoral, copying information not so much. In fact I argue that using the government force to prop up the business model that is scarcity of information is the behaviour that is immoral - unless you (anyone) have an arguement justifying the morality of using that force.

"Copyright infringement is still illegal, whether it's theft or not."

Yes, an since when is legality equilivant to morality? Since you bring legality up, I remind everyone that the copyright act could be repealed tommrow. Suddenly what was immoral yesterday would be totally ok today?

"The whole 'copyright infringement isn't theft' thing seems to be a crutch of an argument people fall on to ignore the issue."

Not so much as a crutch as they are very different things. As I said above, I think the concept of copyright (i.e. using government to enforce a scarsity of information business model) is itself of dubious morality when applied to individuals (which is a recent phenomenon). I have near nil hesitation over copying information, i have large hestitation over taking or depriving someone of their property - that is the difference and it is huge.

Re:I Disagree

[Al Dimond]

I think most people would agree that the morality of both actions is conditional. Most people say that depriving someone of property is immoral. However, if someone is on a busy street going on a shooting rampage, depriving that person of his weapons (and perhaps even of his life) would be generally considered moral. Some really hardcore property rights-ers might say not even this is not moral and some communists might argue that depriving people of any concept of property is perfectly moral. There is a similar range of views on copyright: dada21 and his anarcho-capitalist posse think copying information is always OK and those that believe in the concept of "intellectual property" (the idea that ideas are property) might believe that the expiration of copyright terms is an act of violent force by the government.

There are some real differences between information and tangible objects, however. The big one is that information can be reproduced; in the case of digital representations of informtion it can even be exactly reproduced (copied). In most cases (with some exceptions) people that depend on physical goods depend on the fact that they have them. Copyright owners, on the other hand, generally exploit the fact that others cannot have copies of the works (with some exceptions, and I don't mean "exploit" as a loaded term). This idea of depending on others not having something as a basis for earning income to use to survive is a much newer one, and not quite as universally accepted. I also will state without giving much evidence that there are many more cases where copying information either (a) is encouraged by the information's creator or (b) does no harm whatsoever to the creator, even in the form of lost royalties/wages.

I don't think you can make the argument that copying information and depriving someone of property are equally moral, since the morality depends on many factors of the copying/deprivation that don't have analogues with respect to the other action. The only exception would be if you take a hard line and say that either action is always moral or immoral.

Re:I Disagree

[Thing 1]

And, to your government, both of those activities are not equally immoral.

Steal a CD, get a small fine and perhaps a short jail stay. A recent copyright bill suggests 10 year prison terms for attempting to download a movie (i.e., not even fully committing the crime!).

Someone on Digg suggested murdering the person who is about to turn you in for copyright violation, as that only carries a 5 year prison sentence.

Back in merry old England, pickpockets were put to death if convicted. This only served to turn them into murdering pickpockets, as they were less likely to be identified.

Is It Or Isn't It?

[itmfsshasl]

I have seen a few of these stories and NOWHERE in any of them are there any statements from any controlling legal authorities; just a bunch of FUD from the RIAA and it's cronies. Is it or isn't it legal? No one seems to know and if they do, they aren't saying. It does seem pretty cut and dried as to whether or not it is legal there. I have used it and plan on using it again.

The arguement that it is illegal or should be illegal because the Russian equivalent of the RIAA is NOT paying the artists does not make me a bad person for buying their products. If they aren't paying them...and nobody has produced any evidence that that have or have not...how does this make me in the wrong? I have no idea whether any store I have ever been too has justly compensated everyone back up the supply chain adequately if at all. If my job description is to include researching these things then the RIAA owes me a fortune for doing their work; and you had better believe I charge a fortune for my services.

Let's look at it from a different perspective. Shopping at this place is like going to the mall. It is out in the open. It operates like every other store in the mall. It has been there for several years. AND!...it even provides what looks to be like pretty legitimate documentation allowing it to be open. If I go down the causeway and eat at a restaurant that has done the same thing but has forged it's business license...is that something I should be taken to jail for? If I go into a clothing store and buy a couple of shirts and a pair of jeans...only to find out later that they are counterfeits, should I go to jail or be fined exhorbitant amounts? Here is another funny perspective on this. Over the years more and more companies have been offshoring..why? It is cheaper...not a little bit but bunches and bunches cheaper. We are told time and time again that it is WISE to patronize these other nations as they have a superior product to offer. In this case of MP3's, they are 100% correct. So what is the problem here? It would seem that they need to better police the Russian RIAA there.

Remember the time about 2 years ago when Chevy didn't pay the steelworkers for making the screws that hold radios in place in their cars and everybody who bought a car from Chevy between the dates of January and June of that year went to jail? Neither do I. Do you remember last year when the American cattle farmers didn't pay for the corn in the cows feed and everybody who bought beef last year had to pay a $25,000.00 fine? I don't either.

Now, if the site is legal, if I were the guy, guys, gal, or gals running this site I would sue the RIAA in court till they bled. Since the only thing it seems to understand is lawsuits...I would sue them, the people in it, any supporters of the RIAA and any others I may have forgotte right out of existence. The RIAA would become the multimedia version of SCO. A small little shadow of it's former self.

They, the RIAA, are screaming for this site to be shutdown. It is still up. I imagine it is legal and THAT is the whole problem here as far as they are concerned.

Re:I knew it was illegal!

[kfg]

How much time have you spent in Russia?

None whatsoever. I've never been east of Prague myself, although half of my great grandparents emigrated from Minsk. Much more recently I had a Russian ex-ballerina living in my house for a couple of years. Nice girl. Legs to die for. She ended up prefering Florida to upstate NY.

The average Russian speaks English about as well as the average American speaks Russian.

Who said anything about average? Certainly not I.

I'll ask this though: How many Russian pilots speak English?

All of them.

How many American pilots speak Russian?

Very few.

For good or ill English is the modern Lingua Franca. When a Russian encounters a second language in school it is most likely to be English and English is the most sought after language training sought out in adult education.

In America the most common second language is Spanish. Even though I live only a few hours drive away from French Canada the most likely languages I'm going to encounter in my daily life are Spanish and Hindi, because despite the proximity of Cananda we have more people from South America (and Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic and. . .) here than from Canada.

French, however, is the next most likely second language.

Very few Americans seek to learn Russian, and usually only for some special purpose.

I think you would find, if you looked into the matter, that the average Russian speaks English much, much better than the average American speaks French. They value their second language higher.

When in Prague (and NYC, and Montreal, and my living room) I tend to converse with Russians (and Czechs) in English. They usually insist upon it for the practice.

And a good many Americans who speak the majority tongue of the land these days have a good deal of trouble reading Dickens (Gibbon is right out), because they do not speak the language.

English.

KFG

Re:Where does the $.99 of itunes song go?

[freedom_india]

Its like saying your local municipal water supplies saying, hey if you don't like my water, go elsewhere.

RIAA is a monopoly and should be broken up as such.

Why is it illegal for American Car manufacturers to combine together to conduct shared research, while it is legal for Music morons to combine together to sue a 90 yrs old grandma?

Re:World Police at it again

[MoneyT]

You realize there are a decent chunk of americans (myself included) who think that getting out of the UN and out of much of the world politics is exactly what the US needs to do right? Your threat would be a welcome change for some of us.

Re:I knew it was illegal! WTO let china in

[Zeio]

This is egregious. Think about this. China belongs to the WTO. They use slave labor, actively kill and imprison union organizers. They allow massive pollution. They built the environmental holocaust the three gorges dam which now clogs itself with Yangtze river silt. They ban its citizens from owning firearms and use the military and as a police force. They use Yahoo and Google and Cisco technology, services and infrastructure to imprison and execute political dissidents. China executes over 10,000 people a year in an undocumented fashion with a maximum of two appeals.

China can barely call itself anything but a state holding its people hostage with fear and brainwashing. Recently someone in China who was being interviews by Nova or front line was shown a picture of "Tank Man" from Tiananmen square and they DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE IMAGE WAS OF! Maximum censorship OR total fear of even admitting that something against the government ever even happened. This was 4 students in the interview either feigning not knowing what "Tank Man" is or genuinely not knowing about the incident.

Russia who has valuable oil resources and a more European disposition and a moratorium on the death penalty sells a few MP3s in accordance with their local laws - something the pricks at Google (Schmidt) and Yahoo (Terry "Terrorist" Semel) say makes their anti-Chinese citizen policies in assisting the totalitarian authoritarian government with their persecution - and they cant join the WTO.

WHAT A JOKE. This is a total sick joke.

And this is what I'm talking about.

[Belial6]

This is what I'm talking about. The "IP" nutcases throw accusations and threats at anyone who isn't also a nutcase. They see 'Pirates' and 'Theives' behind every tree. I simply point out that AllOfMP3.com (to the best of my knowledge) is a legal business, and that calling them theives is liable. What happens? I get accused of commiting a crime, and a threat that I will end up in jail is made.

Given that I have never purchased anything from AllOfMP3.com, I certainly have not broken any copyright, and I certainly will not go to jail for it. (Well... given the current political climate, the lack of commiting a crime is no guarantee of not going to jail for copyright violation.) But, somehow the "IP" zelots seem to think that recognizing Russia as a soveriegn nation makes you a criminal.

Seriously, until the "IP" folks can start to carry on conversations without seeing the boogie man around every corner, they cannot be taken seriously.

Re:I knew it was illegal! WTO let china in

[Jugalator]

This is egregious. Think about this. China belongs to the WTO. They use slave labor, actively kill and imprison union organizers. They allow massive pollution. They built the environmental holocaust the three gorges dam which now clogs itself with Yangtze river silt. They ban its citizens from owning firearms and use the military and as a police force.

But how many dollars do US lose on these activities?

This is about the World Trade Organization -- making money.

Re:I knew it was illegal! WTO let china in

[snuf23]

I'm sorry sir you seen to have an improper understanding of value in current American culture. Let me illustrate:

value of song copyright > value of human life

Now is it clear?

Re:I knew it was illegal!

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

America colonizes the world with media. Since we were in control of most major international media producers at the right point in history, and English is so easy to get a basic grasp of for so many different types of people, English will be the language of choice for international communication / interaction at least a century to come. Now, does that mean that the language is going to be appreciated by all the people that speak it? No. Does it mean that those people will be more highly skilled? No. It really means that there will be a higher base level of competency for English than any other language when people are even mildly interested in learning a second language. It's an invalid comparison to knock on Americans for not speaking Russian, unless you're talking to them after they've lived for years in Moscow.

On the other hand, giving someone who is traveling at all a whole bunch of credit for learning the dominant language, the one that many the movies released in their country were originally filmed in, the one that many educated people in any country will speak.... Well, that's a little weird. But whatever. Language is like anything else - most people only learn it when they have a real benefit for it as well as exposure. There's a huge benefit to the average Russian in learning English, and it's easy (comparatively) to get a high level of exposure. To go the other direction is an incredible effort in comparison.

That doesn't let idiots who can't form or comprehend a sentence off the hook though. Idiots will be idiots.

Re:I knew it was illegal! WTO let china in

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought slave labor and anti-union (not that I like unions) governments were frowned upon.

We are talking about FREE trade not slave trade.

My point is is that there is a long documented problem of people in China getting SCREWED by employers and nothing is done, yet, MP3's being downloaded in accordance with local laws (license fees are paid) and the buck stops.

We, the "civilized" world, and members of the WTO should be buying goods where the workers were paid as promised.

As it stands today in China (PRC), that often is not the case.

When you buy form the PRC you suppress humanity and violate the rights of workers. Russia is a kitty cat compared to the lion of Evil the PRC is.

Re:MADNESS!!

[Anonymous Coward]

so why have not Americans been the first country to say no to what is clearly short sighted greed?

Here in the United States, politicians set policy not according to what the people want, but according to what gets them elected. What gets them elected is publicity. There are five major media companies in the US that control 95% of all content that the public is exposed to. Those five companies control what the people hear about their politicians.

Politicians do not get elected by challenging the media. Challenging the media gets a politician publicly defamed and loses them the election. Politicians get elected by doing exactly what the media asks of them. That is why the Copyright Term Extension Act was passed in one day with no debate less than a month before an election.