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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."
I love it.
Intellegence indicates WMD hidden in Antequa. Marines sent to investigate.
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.
So I assume the US banned gambling in other countries via the net because the govt wasn't getting a piece? Is that the bottom line? Or is there another reason?
Can you imagine a place in the world with no such thing as IP rights and regulations? It would be an information hotspot like the world has never seen. You want music/movies/files, you got them, on demand, piped through a broadband connection. It's like a geeky vacation spot, with uber-souvenirs.
Hey Pirate Bay! You just got your island!
Just because the lawyer representing Antigua has requested this method of penalizing the US for violating WTO rulings doesn't mean the WTO would actually allow it. I don't recall anything in that article that even hints at the WTO following that line of reasoning.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Allowed by the WTO. I will mean that if Antigua did pirate US stuff, the US would not be able to get the WTO to apply any sanctions. Which is pretty much all they could do, as Antigua is not in the Us and it would be awfully hard to convince anyone that you need a new war just cause of some pirate DVDs.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Fry: "What do we care? We live in the United States."
Leela: "The United States is part of the world."
Fry: "Wow, I have been gone a long time."
Thankfully, that is a transcript from the future, and America is not yet part of this "world" of which the UN speaks of
Then you didn't finish the article, including the fact that Ecuador was, at one point, granted just this sort of relief. Ecuador chose not to exercise their right to ignore US intellectual property claims, and instead used it as leverage in trade negotiations.
Considering the US has a long history of not complying with WTO rulings that don't suit them, I am surprised that they would even try this method; even if the WTO were to rule in their favour, they know all too well that the WTO is all bark and no bite.
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).
The U.S. banned international online gambling because of pressure (read: bribes) from the big domestic casinos. Mainly the Indian tribes and the Vegas / Atlantic City ones. Probably the state lotteries, too.
They made it into a "moral issue," but that's just bullshit that they can sell to a few Evangelical hicks. The real issue was that the casinos felt that international companies were cutting into their business, so they had Congress close it down. It was pretty straightforward protectionism; online betting with U.S.-based B&M casinos (including internet off-track betting on horses, internet purchase of lottery tickets, etc.) is OK, but international ones are not.
The WTO saw this for what it is, and is basically saying, 'either you let everyone compete, or you shut it all down.' So this puts the U.S. in the position of either letting international casinos into the U.S. market, or shutting down all internet gambling (including aforementioned web-based off-track-betting, lottery tickets, sports books, etc.). The casinos -- particularly the Vegas ones -- wouldn't like that much either.
So it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. I have to give the Antiguans -- and most of all, their lawyer (who is from Texas) -- credit. It takes some brass ones to go eye-to-eye with the USG, even when they're doing something that's so transparently corrupt. I hope they can pull it off.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It's not a "violation" of anything if it's all officially sanctioned. Just another way of redistributing copyrights to the people of Antigua.
"I'm a Laver, not a Phyto[plankton]"
That's right. Worldwide support for the US has never been so high; were Antigua to incur the wrath of America, the EU and Asian countries would just back off and completely ignore Antigua. The US is the world leader in these things, right?
It's not that simple.
Online gambling has been banned in the US for years by the same laws that made it illegal to wager over the phone. So there were never any domestic online gambling companies, because the US would just arrest the people running them for violating existing law.
But, the US couldn't get at people who ran online gambling companies outside the country, and while the US could have technically prosecuted individual gamblers for gambling online, that would hardly be practical. So instead, the US recently made it illegal for US banks and credit card companies to process payments to online gambling companies, effectively preventing US citizens from gambling online since it's now much harder to get your money to the gambling site.
The trick here is that the law only applies to certain kinds of online gambling, specifically, the kind of online gambling common in casinos, as it was mainly the casinos pushing for this legislation (under the guise of 'gambling is evil!'). So, the US had a situation in which certain domestic companies could engage in gambling as a trade, but certain international companies could not - and that's the basis of the WTO dispute.
The US actually has a very similar construct with regard to free trade amongst the 50 US states - it isn't legal for any state to have laws which favor domestic commerce over commerce from parties in other states. For example, in a recent ruling, the Supreme Court struck down a state law that banned companies from directly shipping alcoholic beverages to customers from out of state while allowing domestic producers to do so. Supreme Court said you had to either ban all mail-order alcohol sales or none.
And that's what the WTO is saying. The US is free to ban gambling, so long as they ban ALL gambling, not just gambling done by companies outside the country. And the US would be free to tax gambling, so long as it taxes ALL gambling. So the problem isn't that the US isn't getting a piece - they could allow gambling and tax it and get a piece. The problem is that because of the existing ban on online wagering that pit US casinos against non-US online gaming sites, the US companies were losing business to the non-US companies, so the US banned gambling at the non-US companies, which is exactly the kind of practice the free trade pacts and the WTO are supposed to prevent.
paintball
Er, you mean WMDs (Windows Media Discs) don't you?
If other countries have to honor the US copyrights, does that mean they can't import the goods from antigua?
On the other hand, all those Al Queda terrorists that are using off-shore gambling in Antigua to launder their death money might provide the Whitehouse Junta plenty of ammo to freeze Antigua's assets that are in or pass through US banking.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
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.
First, no one is talking about (or they shouldn't be if they are) a blank check to violate copyrights. They would be allowed to violate copyrights of a value equivalent to the estimated value of the loss created by the United States' alleged improper behavior. If that loss is estimated to be $3bn, they could be given permission to violate $3bn in copyrights.
The more important question is why does Antigua respect American copyrights at all? Well, because they gain from respecting them. It's part of free and fair trade. You aren't just allowed to take something from someone. Along the same lines, you aren't allowed to bar someone from importing goods or providing services to your citizens unless they is a defendable reason - such as an authentic health and safety standard.
The WTO is the body that makes sure everyone plays by the rules. It is a voluntary association and people can leave it - and then make whatever laws they want. So, Antigua can leave the WTO and violate copyrights as much as they want - the problem is that WTO countries then can't/won't trade with them and so they loose a lot more than they would gain.
In this case, the United States would have to prove that online gambling is sufficiently worse and different from traditional gambling (which is legal in the US) - a reason why traditional gambling doesn't pose a threat to their population, but that online gambling does. Antigua needs to prove that the US regulations on online gambling don't actually protect the American people, but are rather meant to give American companies the advantage over Antiguan companies.
This isn't some weird global government looking to get rid of sovereignty. This is about using logic to determine when rules are meant to be discriminatory based on national origin and when something is a genuine health or safety standard. The US can make the argument that online gambling becomes too accessible and is therefore a much greater danger than traditional gambling. Antigua can argue that it's the same thing that happens at casinos. A court will decide which arguments hold weight based on evidence.
Anyone offering odds on the outcome?
My god, man, we're talking about pirates here! High seas battles, raped women and children, missing gold, plunder at the bottom of the sea, "arg matey" and worse!
Those cretins are almost as bad as terrorists.
Unless you want to have your next sailing trip interrupted by these cannon-toting freaks, you'd better support a war!
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Much more likely a congresscritter cast a vote because of some reward factor than some bogus moral imperative based on the critters ethics.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
We shall be initiating hostilities over "From Justin to Kelly".
That, and congress is full of ninjas. It's true.
On the plus side, with this sort of motivation behind Hollywood they might turn out to be good movies.
Of course you can't see them, they're Ninjas!!!
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
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
They're pirates. They're not a nation; no sovereign monarch rules over them.
Sure, you can have the Royal Navy cruise up, let fly, and hang the bastards, but that's not war, it's merely enforcement of the law.
(Yes, I'm trying to stop people from declaring war on piracy, because it is my life's goal to steal the HMS Victory, load her with cannon, and start sinking, burning or taking a prize any ship bearing the goods of the RIAA. Come to think of it, maybe carronades would be better. No one's going to suspect the HMS Victory of shooting at them.)
(Note for Government-Sponsored RIAA spooks: No, not really. I'm joking.)
(Note for Slashdot: No I'm not. Join me, mateys! The best in provisions, 16 ounces to the pound, free tobacco, mountain dew, bawls and shipwide LAN!)
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
People flock in huge numbers to Florida, Mexico, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, etc. Why would they not go to Cuba if the choice were available, and the price was right?
I think you meant to say "Americans flock in huge numbers to ...".
And that my friend is why Cuba is such a popular destination for the rest of the world. No flocks of Americans.
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
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
You know, compared to a Vista install disc, Sarin doesn't seem so bad.
Redundancy is good And also good.
Think of the damage if they used Gigli. Oh, the Humanity!!
Redundancy is good And also good.
Not so. Without copyright law, the entirety of the GPL is unenforcable. This isn't about legal / illegal wares, this is about ownership of code. No copyright law means that I can take GPL source code in Antigua, strip off the license, and re-publish it in my own name.
Let me see if I get this straight...
In the US, gambling on overseas casino websites is banned while certain domestic gambling websites (OTB, online lottery tickets) are allowed to operate. Antigua, where online casinos thrive, argues that the US policy is harming their trade. The WTO rules that the US must either all ow all forms of online gambling or ban all forms of online gambling.
Should the US disregard the WTO ruling and not allow US citizens to use overseas casino websites, Antigua would be granted the following as compensation: "permission for Antiguans to violate intellectual property laws by allowing them to distribute copies of American music, movie and software products, among others."
Isn't that like saying "Well, if I'm not allowed to sell to Peter, I'll steal from Paul to compensate!"? (Overlook the whole copyright-violation-isn't-stealing issue on this, and grab hold of the concept of stealing from an unrelated party as compensation.)
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Actually, what they are complaining about is that the US is blocking commercial transactions with Antiguan businesses that would be legal if the were businesses physically located inside the US. The WTO says that's a big no-no.
The US has claimed the moral exemption allowed by the WTO - That the morals of the US do not permit online gambling. However, as Antigua pointed out, the US does permit online gambling - OTB on dog & horse racing is legal interstate, and most forms of gambling are legal intrastate - in those states which have legalized gambling of any nature.
The WTO courts have rightly held that you can't claim a moral exemption for international activities, when it is permitted within your country. Either online gambling is morally offensive to the US & it's not to be allowed at all or it's not and the US has to open up the practice to everyone. The US doesn't get to pick & choose which types of gambling are offensive - it's either morally offensive or it's not.
As a case directly on point, it is currently perfectly legal to place a bet on the Kentucky Derby through the OTB website, it is however illegal to place the same bet on the same Kentucky Derby race through an Antiguan online site. This is why the US lost the case, they were claiming that the an action was morally repugnant to the US when done with an Antiguan business, but perfectly acceptable when done through a US based one.
Personally, I think you would have seen a bigger stink if they had gone for patents instead of copyright. The cries of anguish by the US pharmaceutical companies alone should be clearly audible on Antiguan beaches.
As it is, I would like to put in my request for a legal copy of Antiguan Vistas(tm) to run on my computer - just so I can smack the next BSA person I see with it. "Why yes, it is a perfect copy of Windows Vista - without all the DRM crap & calling home. OOh look here, I see that the source code has been released by the Antiguan Software Coalition."
Except that would ruin their economy and the world's too.
Other than being completely wrong though, you have a point.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV...
You miss the point of the WTO, a blanket ban like that violates the WTO treaty, that is the law of the land as per our constitution once it was ratified by our Senate. The ban is impacting a treaty member, Antigua, and since the ban is a violation of the treaty, they have the right to seek comparable relief against the US. We are prohibited by law from interfering in the exercise of that relief once granted.
We have been under WTO sanctions before. As recently as 2004, trade partners sought WTO relief because the US enacted a law that granted a percentage of duties collected on foreign products to go to the American companies who compete with those foreign products. Canada, European Union, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, India, Japan and Chile asked the WTO to impose penalties on a range of U.S. products such as cod, textiles, glassware, mobile homes and apples as retaliatory sanctions that would amount to more than $150 million annually. Those penalties would have hit American businesses hard, making them less competitive in those markets, and thus providing some pressure on the US to comply with their treaty obligations.
The ban on online gambling was a not very well thought out law, nor was it subjected to the kind of review that would have brought these kinds of concerns to the attention of the Congress and maybe stopped them from passing bad law.
As for consumer protection against potential shady practices of online casinos, honestly, there is only so much we can, or should, do to protect consumers from their own bad behavior. Most counties that have legalized online gambling operations VERY closely regulate them. Canada and Antigua both have been very aggressive in this, but so have many other counties. The pressure that can be brought to bear on nations who allow rogue casinos to operate is great. Using the potential of rogue casinos as a justification for passing bad law is a case of bad logic as well.
And this is consistent with international politics how? It's either repugnant, or it's not. "You can old do it if you are this company or in this city or on this 'special' plot of land." Doesn't exactly count with most people - whether they support gambling or not. Those who are against like the status quo because it prevents the "spread of corruption", those who are for it like it because it's a safe-heaven/money pot. But just because some company got around it by *leaving* the US doesn't make the double-standard OK.
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
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.
I don't really know why I should go through the trouble of finding perfectly googleable information for a random slashdot poster, but since I have some time to spend, here you go:
Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (in WTO), article 22.3:
In considering what concessions or other obligations to suspend, the complaining party shall apply the following principles and procedures:
(a) the general principle is that the complaining party should first seek to suspend concessions or other obligations with respect to the same sector(s) as that in which the panel or Appellate Body has found a violation or other nullification or impairment;
(b) if that party considers that it is not practicable or effective to suspend concessions or other obligations with respect to the same sector(s), it may seek to suspend concessions or other obligations in other sectors under the same agreement. (emphasis added)
How else do you really think it could work? It's not like Antigua can extract billions of dollars by placing restrictions on how its citizens may use US gambling services. It must be able to enforce the treaties in question somehow, and that's exactly what WTO is: A framework for supervising member states' implementation of free trade and providing a way to respond to violations.
Think this way: If small developing country A is a big exports of bananas to the US, while US exports iPods to country A. Now if country A places restrictions to iPods that it doesn't place to other countries or locally produced producs, do you think the US can extract the lost revenue by placing restrictions on tech imports from country A? Sure, that's the preferred way (paragraph (a) above), but if it's just not adequate, US can place import tariffs on bananas.
Fair enough?
Guy, you replied twice to the same post because I got you so twisted about being wrong.
That pretty much says it all.
Thanks.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"Look, when you don't know anything about a subject you should keep quiet instead of proving yourself to be a fool."
And you should take your own advice cunt.
I posted a link to an analysis paper by the president of the federal reserve bank of St. Louis and two other well regarded economists. The best you could do was call it "old and poorly written", and you didn't refute a single point in it.
You posted NOTHING.
So how about you shut your idiot mouth now?
"Continuing after it's already been demonstrated is just silly."
You're right, but you decided to be a dick and attack me for proving you wrong anyway.
You lost, stop acting like a 4 year old and stamping your feet and screaming "YES HUH YES HUH!!!" when I posted proof and you posted fucking NOTHING.
Fuck off now.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.