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U.S. Puts 12 Nations On Watch For Piracy
ColinPL writes with a link to an AP article about a public scolding the US has given China, Russia, and several other nations. Failure to 'sufficiently protect' American copyrights is the cause of the Bush administration's ire, and has resulted in these countries showing up on a 'priority watch list' that could eventually lead to economic sanctions. "In addition to Russia and China, the 10 countries placed on the priority watch list were Argentina, Chile, Egypt, India,
Israel, Lebanon, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Venezuela. In elevating Thailand to the priority watch list, the administration said it was concerned by a range of issues including a 'deteriorating protection for patents and copyrights.' Thailand is currently in a dispute with international drug companies including Abbott Laboratories of the United States over the cost of drugs to fight AIDS and other diseases. The Thai government in January issued compulsory licenses allowing the use of much cheaper generic versions of two leading drugs in Thailand."
Except that they can't do much. Sure, the U.S. government can impose economic sanctions on non-compliant countries, but that only takes you so far. The U.S. Constitution requires that the federal government respect the sovereignty of foreign nations. U.S. courts won't typically touch a copyright infringement case if the infringement occurs overseas.
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Could that have anything to do with the fact that we just caved to US lobbyist pressure to buy some goodwill?
I like to think of online DRM as something akin to a college -- you pay for lessons until you learn something.
Even /. has bought into calling copyright infringement "piracy". If you don't think it's the moral equivalent of murder on the high seas, then don't use the RIAA term "piracy". You just play into their hands.
As an Indian I can attest that there is nothing going on in India to protect "Intellectual property". I am neglecting the facts that KPO is a branded commodity for US, and the Bollywood industry has been doing its own part of playing RIAA in India.
1) India is big, poor, and in short, 3rd world country. It has problems involving supply of water (clean or not), clean air etc. It surprises many people in India when they learn that other countries don't have regular power failures. I don't think there is absolutely anything anyone can do to stop piracy. If they could, they would stop theft of electricity first. And I am not even sure "Intellectual property" is widely accepted as property.
2) Bollywood et. al. will never add the DRM. Dirt cheap electronics from China and Taiwan are driving the market, and anyone having a TV is buying a DVD player. And unlike most other countries, movies in Bollywood are made for the lowest section of society. No one can take the risk of screwing this market. Just some days ago I bought a DVD and was able to just copy-paste-play it. Region lock is not known to most people.
Those are what I consider the good parts. The bad part is, though, that open source is a far off concept - a competition between free Windows and free Linux. I don't even remember a place where I can buy Windows legally. If you ask the dealer, he will just burn a CD for you, for free or for 15 rs. (.25 ). Unless Linux becomes as big as Windows, good luck having it a "Desktop OS".
You can't spell DMCA without the "D"....
/. basement-dwellers that this post is going to cause will be funny.
Yep, the entertainment industry gives at least twice as much to Democrats as they do to Republicans. Since 1990, they've given $137,219,474 to Dems, and $63,574,385 to Repubs.
The recording industry is even more skewed, giving $13,635,639 to Dems and $3,727,147 to Repubs since 1990. That's 78% to Dems - with some election cycles having 85% of the recording industries political contributions going to Dems.
But that's nothing compared to the movie industry, which gave $47,800,285 to Dems and $7,192,062 to Repubs since 1990. Up to 93% of movie industry political contributions have gone to Dems in some election cycles, with that number never lower than 78%.
There's a reason why the DMCA was signed by a Democratic President. Hell, there are millions of reasons, all of them green...
The cognitive dissonance among sheltered
Complete and utter nonsense. The amount of software piracy here in Israel is comparable to that in, e.g., the UK, France or Ireland.
The reason that Israel is on the list is completely different: Teva, which -- allegedly -- in its research, does not respect American pharmaceutical patents, and is one of the world's largest generic drugs companies. American pharma companies wage a battle against Teva for many years now. Teva's success is causing American companies losses in many billions (way beyond what Teva earns, because generic drugs sell for much less than the amount for which the non-generic drugs would have sold; the loss is on two levels, (a) lost sales, and (b) being forced to reduce prices).