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Antigua May Be Allowed To Violate US Copyrights
Skleed refers us to the NYTimes for an article on the high-stakes case the US is losing before the World Trade Organization. So far the US has lost an initial hearing and two appeals on its policies regarding Antiguan offshore gambling sites. Now the lawyer pressing the case has asked for a rarely invoked, but codified, recourse under WTO rules: letting Antiguans copy and distribute American music, movies, and software. The game may be to get Hollywood and Microsoft, et al., to pressure Washington to cut a deal. But their influence may not be sufficient to move lawmakers on the question of online gambling. From the article: "But not complying with the decision presents big problems of its own for Washington. That's because Mr. Mendel, who is claiming $3.4 billion in damages on behalf of Antigua, has asked the trade organization to grant a rare form of compensation if the American government refuses to accept the ruling: permission for Antiguans to violate intellectual property laws by allowing them to distribute copies of American music, movie and software products, among others."
What the lawyer has done is basically utilized the US's own insistace at the WTO against them, and really leveredged the law to it's extreme. So, either the US gets shot or hung, depending on which way the case goes. In either case, the US's legal case just died.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Of course, this won't much stop satellite to the EU but smuggling is a serious offense and the US could easily put anyone involved in "facilitation" on watchlists (arrest on sight).
If other countries have to honor the US copyrights, does that mean they can't import the goods from antigua?
No kidding. It might be amusing to watch anti-war Hollywood suddenly discover that, while war is always wrong, a "narrow" use of the US military is sometimes necessary for the greater good.
The actual ban was a last-minute, backdoor provision, slipped into another bill with no debate and no formal vote.
It was widely expected to fail, but then Bill Frist tacked it onto a port security bill.
Looking at his lifetime donors, it doesn't appear to have been for a traditional special interest group. Instead, I think it was just a failing congressman, trying to appeal to the fascist evangelicals, who wish to legislate their morality on the rest of us.
See my reply here.
Also, I would argue (am arguing) that the drive to create is separate from the drive for money. There would still be artists if creating art was punishable by death, it has nothing to do with making money.
The connection between creating art and becoming rich and famous was propagated by the middle men who looked at artists and said, "You know, I could really make a killing by distributing this." That is capitalism.
Now that we are in the "Digital Age" and distribution can be widespread and done by anyone, the middle-men are threatened and are reacting, sometimes by adapting to the new technology, sometimes by suing everyone in sight.
The ideal solution would be to find a way to reward artists, without restricting the distribution of art. That is the goal, remember?
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
I don't think America's military might is what scares most countries (excepting those whith which you already have some kind of conflict), but actually economic/financial and political might is the problem. America can fight so many stupid wars before things start to get really ugly internally, the problem is that even when in deficit, the US has incredible economical and financial muscle. Subtle threats to drive a small country's economy down the drain with a few moves can lead to misery just as quick and maybe more lastingly (is that a word?) than a conventional war.
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
Why would the WTO matter, if you do not allow the importation of a service as long as you don't allow it from ANY nation it should not be a WTO matter. It's when you single out individual WTO members to exclude them or include them is when problems arise. If the US does not allow gambling except at specific places in its own nation, that seems fine to me.
If the issue were that gambling were allowed in the US by US companies and French companies but not by any other nation, that would be a big deal. But it seems to me that the US wants to exclude all its citizens from online gambling with all nations.
Or is the US allowing people in other nations to gamble at Los Vegas online, but not its own citizens? I don't know all the details.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
There are a couple problems with the idea of Antigua becoming pirate central. One is that they have most favored nation trading status with the U.S., which is economically very important to them, because they participate in the Caribbean Basin Initiative. Of the the things to which a country agrees when joining CBI is (drumroll please) to observe U.S. "intellectual property rights". So sure, the WTO may say they can ignore them, but if they do then it suddenly becomes a lot more difficult to trade with the U.S.
The second thing is that reliable server colo and hosting can be really expensive down there. There are only so many ways for bits to get on and off the island. I'm not sure if Cable & Wireless is the only provider anymore, but if not then the others are likely to be connected by satellite connections -- can you say 1000ms latency?
Trust me, no one would be more delighted than I for the Eastern Caribbean to become an IP-free paradise of data haven goodness. But I don't expect it no matter how the WTO case turns out.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
I'm guessing you are young. Your logic is interesting, do you really think the rest of the world fears the US because a couple of you over there incorrectly paint the entire country as a single entity unique in the belief that the infantile rubbish you are parroting off is absolute truth. Fortunately the rest of the world is touch smarter and a little more rational than that.
Do some basic economics, you'll find that the US is propped up on the backs of a good many nations. It would only take one or two of the bigger ones to start grumbling and your house of cards could very easily come tumbling down. Remove China from the big picture and what do you have? Slash oil production and where are you? Perhaps a lot of jobs would return to the US, but your economy will have the backside ripped out of it as a result - that fine military of which you speak will not have such a rosy outlook.
Understand the bigger picture, it has nothing to do with military power.
It wouldn't be paying to purchase stuff. If you buy something from a foreign hosted site you have purchase the material in that nation, if the material is legal there then according to treaty is legal when imported to your home nation (aka, downloaded after purchase).
That was the whole debate with allofmp3.com. IF the material really was legal under russian law, the copies you purchased were legal well. The only real debate was whether or not the material WAS legal under russian law.