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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."
If only China and Russia were big enough to not give a shit about US policy...
... anyone have a .torrent of it?
This isn't just the Bush administration. If you vote for either of the Big Two, the person you voted for has been bought and paid for by the MAFIAA, and they are in full support of sending the copyright Gestapo after law-breakers worldwide.
Dear United STATES of AMERICA.
You have your own part of the world. Please stay within it's boundaries and spend the saved time READING Wikipedia's article on law. You DO NOT and SHALL NOT ever control other nations laws. You cannot even abide by the very laws you were founded on these days, so why do you expect others to do the same?
Lots of love
Rest of the world.
If anyone realizes that having an economy that is increasingly dependent on "intellectual property" is a bad thing. Nowadays there is no compelling reason to buy things from the copyright holders other than maybe feeling guilty or an affinity for tangible copies. ESPECIALLY since the pirated versions often are much better than the retail versions in functionality and portability.
I remember on my camp in Kuwait, the TCNs (third-world country nationals) would come on to clean, and would also stop by our living quarters with a truck load of burned dvds and vcds for a few bucks a pop. And this was very often. I know it was even worse up in Iraq, with people ripping and burning movies to sell on the markets all the time.
So these other countries must be doing this in huge quantities to be on this list. It's rather impressive really.
After the MPAA threw it's hissy-fit tantrum a while back about how Canada is the #1 place for movie piracy because it's where screen records come from, that they're thinking of delaying out movie release for weeks, yada yada yada, Canada doesn't make it anywhere on the list? Heh. Maybe the federal government isn't quite as stupid about what the *AAs are doing as they typically act like.
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.
These countries can do everything cheaper as seen with off-shored outsourcing and all.
The only edge the US has is innovation.
If these countries can just copy everything and do it dirt cheap, it will harm entities in the US who spend money on innovation - be it pharmaceuticals, music or software.
I think a bit of personal not-for-profit p2p downloading and an exception for life-saving drugs in OK. But, the balatant disregard for copyrights and patents with businesses in these countries openly copying and selling pharmaceuticals, software and music should be stopped.
In the article, it says there was an announcement in the United States last Monday in which it was said that Brazil was removed from the top most part of the list of countries that ignore piracy and violate intellectual property.
Funny thing in the article is to read that they found out that Brazil didn't manufacture the products that were confiscated by authorities, but they were manufacture in China and crossed the border into Brazil via Paraguay.
Copying drugs to fight AIDS and other diseases.
Those bastards!
If this were really happening, what would you think?
I find it very interesting that Israel is on the list as it is the only country on the list that could really be affected by US sanctions.
Ok, they want to put Thailand on this list partly because Thailand has told them we are only going to pay a certain amount for anti-viral HIV medication instead of the hugely inflated US prices. Seems to me that saves US dollars in the end because it is US men (and other westerners too) going over for underage sex with potentially HIV infected girls which if treated appropriately would keep US healthcare costs down by decreasing transmission to US citizens.
..they forgot to put the US on the watch list. Considering the computer userbase here, the "amount" of piracy might be higher than in any of those countries, or even all of them taken together. Here's some numbers for you: Ukraine Internet Users: 5.278 Million (2005) Russia Internet Users: 23.7 Million (2005) China Internet Users: 123 Million (2006) India Internet Users: 60 Million (2005) United States Internet Users: 205.327 Million (2005) (According to https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/inde x.html)
That does not really reflect the whole picture (people there buy bootleg dvd's instead of downloading), but might give you some ideas to think of.
when you are going to sanction the whole world (more or less).
What is interesting to me is the fact that the whole world (more or less) thinks your products are so pricey that copyright infringement is a better option.
And this little DRM thingy doesn't seem to be working out too well at the moment. Despite the **AAs opinion that DRM is the only way to protect their business product (which is distribution) the entire world (more or less) is telling them that their product is too expensive.
I'd be willing to be that counts as the world talking with one voice? s
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Let's be a bit more honest about this 'list', ok?
If the US govt. says they 'just' put a dozen nations on a piracy blacklist, what it really means is that a dozen nations have been on said list for some time now, allowing the US govt. to harvest statistics, map patterns, etc.
Saying this just went into effect is BS. I'd bet it's been a working list for at least the last year or three. The only reason a 'statement' is released is to keep two or more politically driven hot-button issues in sync in the public mind.
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".
Strange, here's a map of global piracy
China and Russia don't seem to be a problem at all?
http://www.icc-ccs.org/extra/display.php
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.
First of all, piracy is not murder on the high seas, it's robbery on the high seas. Secondly, language is constantly evolving. A word that means one thing one day, may mean something else later. "Gay", for example, means light-hearted and happy. However, it now also means effeminate, homosexual, etc. It did not have those secondary meanings a century ago, or even fifty years ago. "Hacker" is another example. It used to refer to a person who modifies electronic equipment to get higher performance. Now it has the added meaning of breaking or bypassing computer security systems. Once the alternate definition becomes broadly known it becomes official.
So, rage all you want. You will never get "piracy" back. Nor will we get "hacker" back. It's a lost battle.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
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
"If anyone realizes that having an economy that is increasingly dependent on "intellectual property" is a bad thing. Nowadays there is no compelling reason to buy things from the copyright holders other than maybe feeling guilty or an affinity for tangible copies. ESPECIALLY since the pirated versions often are much better than the retail versions in functionality and portability."
Wow - now that's a gross over-generalization, and only part of the first sentence is even close to right here...
Going back to front (sort of):
"Nowadays there is no compelling reason to buy things from the copyright holders other than maybe feeling guilty or an affinity for tangible copies."
To meet one gross over-generalization with another, you mean besides keeping the copyright holders in business so that they can continue to produce content? There's a basic economic reality you're missing here - producing any product or content takes time and resources, and to continue to do that requires that money is made to pay for the time and resources.
(And, before somebody bites my head off, yes, I know the internet is a cheap means of distribution, and yes, I know the RIAA treats its content creators horribly - I'm talking in the broadest of strokes here. When it comes down to it, any content creator needs to at least eat.)
But, you know what, you're right - we don't need that pesky literature, movies, and music anyway. If shadow puppets were good enough for our ancestors, they're good enough for us!
"ESPECIALLY since the pirated versions often are much better than the retail versions in functionality and portability."
Um, no, not really. Windows Vista is DRM-happy to the point of stupidity, and the RIAA has done everything it can to drive music fans into the hands of file-sharers, but that doesn't mean that the greater utility lies in files on a computer. Actually, in most cases a physical media tends to have better functionality and portability.
Take movies for example - I can go visit my parents in another city and bring a couple of movies along, and the DVDs are quite light, easy to carry, and all I have to do is put them into any DVD player in North America to have them work. No file copying, no waiting for a download to finish, no taking up space on my hard disk - everything is just on the DVD. When it comes to the DRM stupidity we have been seeing, we have to remember that it's the DRM causing the problems, not the physical format itself.
"If anyone realizes that having an economy that is increasingly dependent on "intellectual property" is a bad thing."
This is the one place where you are at least partially correct. But you shouldn't be saying "intellectual property" here - you should be saying "service-based," because that is what is really there. The United States used to have some of the greatest manufacturing power in the world, and now it seems it actually produces very little. But that's a more complicated argument, and not really relevant to this discussion.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
I have to say I agree with this action to some degree. Namely as it relates to drug companies though. I've been involved people that work in the pharmaceutical business, and getting a drub approved by the FDA is NOT easy. Many never make it to market, and almost all of them require a lot of money to develop in R&D. While making a product is no guarantee of making money, they should be allowed some protection for doing the work. Without a patent on the drug, the minute it hits the market it will be reverse engineered by a different drug company and sold cheaper. Some say that is the way it should be, but I honestly don't agree. The company creating the drug is spending a lot of time and money in R&D, without which we wouldn't get the current drugs we have and rely on. Why should another company get to easily piggy back on their efforts? Where is the motivation to find new cures in that environment?
As to the cost of the drugs, the companies are trying to make money. They're not non-profit organizations. Should they be? That's a different question all together which I won't address here. The rest of the world complains about the price of drugs and refuses to pay the prices the drug companies want to charge, instead deciding not to honor the patents on the drugs if the price doesn't come down. The result? The US has much higher drug prices than most of the rest of the world because we end up paying for the companies R&D costs since the rest of the world won't. Sorry, I can't feel bad about sanctions against countries that refuse to carry the burden of R&D costs and leave the US to carry it all. Do I feel the costs be lower? Definitely. However, I also don't know the R&D cost for a particular drug so whose to say the costs aren't in line with a reasonable time line to recoup R&D costs? I can't say I think having for profit companies develop the drugs helps things.
Given this situation, what's the way to handle it OTHER than patents? How can a company recoup the R&D costs (plus a profit) for a drug at a price level that is fair to all countries? Why shouldn't the countries in the rest of the world be forced to honor the drug companies' patents? It's not like it's a field where the companies can simply say "Pay up or you don't get the cure".
I don't really care much about the copyright portion of this story, but I get irked when I see people ranting against drug companies. They're definitely not perfect, but they are getting screwed by the rest of the world as bad as they screw the people in the US imo.
KhyronHow about pharmaceuticals, aeronautics, grain/crops, and produce?
Those bastards!
This is one of those things that's come up a couple of times in the past year or two that just turns my stomach every single time. I understand that US pharmaceutical corporations have no economic reason to spend billions researching cures to AIDS and other pandemic ailments only to give them away around the world, but seriously!
Why is it not, instead, the case where governments all around the world pool their resources, research and distribute medications, and solve the whole AIDS problem once and for all like we did with Smallpox? Have we no compassion whatsoever? And even if we don't, don't we all realize that millions of people infected with AIDS in Africa means that there are millions of people who are totally capable of transmitting the disease elsewhere? Even if we made it a thing of the past in developed, wealthy countries, it would still affect us all.
Also, props to parent for recognizing the most heinous part of this whole international copyright-infringement farce.
Piracy here is so rampant that you cannot walk a block in the city center without finding a street vendor openly selling movies,music and software. Once they make enough money they can just get a small shop in one of the malls.
Hell, one of the biggest piracy centers in the country has to be the oldest university.They have a huge corridor filled with almost every single software,movie or music you can think of.Movies for the low price of $2.32. Full DVD copy,menus,cover and all.