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US Blocking Costa Rican Sugar Trade To Force IP Laws
For the last couple of days news has been trickling in about how the US is trying to ram IP laws down Costa Rica's throat by blocking their access to the US sugar market. Techdirt has a good summary of the various commentaries and a related scoop in the Bahamas where the US is also applying IP pressure. "The first is in Costa Rica, which is included in the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Yet like with other free trade agreements that the US has agreed to elsewhere, this one includes draconian intellectual property law requirements. I still cannot understand why intellectual monopoly protectionism — the exact opposite of 'free trade' — gets included in free trade agreements. At least in Costa Rica, a lot of people started protesting these rules, pointing out that it would be harmful for the economy, for education and for healthcare. So the Costa Rican government has not moved forward with such laws. How has the US responded? It's blocking access to the US market of Costa Rican sugar until Costa Rica approves new copyright laws."
We still have corn syrup!
In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women.
Cuz increasingly that's all we have left. Especially now that money-printing business has hit the fan.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Makes me want to setup shop on an island to buy sugar from Costa Rica solely for the purpose of reselling it to the US so Costa Rica can maintain their dignity.
And any other resource for that matter... maybe some type of ship exchange like you do with Propane. Hell, I could corner the market on all sugar imports so they won't be able to tell how much of it is Costa Rica sugar...
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
I can't think of many countries that don't use tariffs or trade restrictions to promote their own national interests in some way. It may be stupid and benefit no one in the end, but it's still within a nation's rights to take their ball and go home.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
US produces IP and wants to protect it.
Sugar being a tangible item is what Costa Rica produces.
You want to trade with the US you should play by US rules. The US want to trade with Costa Rica we play by Costa Rican rules, thus the trade agreement.
I see nothing wrong here.
Why these trade rules aren't being used to enforce environmental agreements and not IP ones is somewhat beyond me.
That government of the corporations
By the corporations
For the corporations
Shall not perish from the Earth
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
US pushes around Central American country and gets away with it because we are their biggest market. Gee, that's only been the story of, what, the past 150 years?
... doesn't mean they were wrong.
Congratulations, the West was so focused on preventing communist totalitarians from taking over the world we've let capitalists move in and fill the niche.
The One World Government is here. But it's not a communist state, it's a kleptocracy.
(Hey, but at least we have Avatar and deep fried butter to distract us.)
I can see the fnords!
You misunderstand the meaning of free trade/the free market. It's free as in free for the more advanced economies, but not for the rest. Historically, countries like Europe and America (and others) have strengthened their economies by violating free market principles, and enforcing them on others.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Free trade is to stop nations from creating safe havens for their producers by erecting unfair barriers to trade not to allow anyone to take whatever IP they want and use it as they see fit.
Free trade is where I say 'hey, I've got this widget, you want to buy it?' and you say 'sure, here's $10' and we exchange cash for widget, without the government interfering at any point.
You don't need huge treaties for free trade, you just need governments to get out of the way.
How many of you know, specifically, your elected representatives' views on international trade?
And how many of you plan to claim you did, but really didn't,and had to look it up when I called you on it?
Meaning: before IP was invented, just a few hundred years ago, writers made no money. Which is, of course, absurd. IP is a scam, as much as religions or the war on drug.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Article I, Section 9. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state. No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another: nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one state, be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties in another.
That's it. In contrast CAFTA is 3700 pages long. NAFTA is 2000 pages long. These agreements do not give freedom, they take it away.
its a direct, unavoidable consequence of the rise of the internet
ip laws only make sense when they are a gentleman's agreement among a handful of publishers. they are completely unenforceable when every teenager in his basement is a publisher to anyone else at zero cost, for anything you want
the wise thing for costa rica to do is simply agree to whatever the usa demands ip law wise. and then its business as usual. which is: everything is available with no ip restrictions to anyone remotely familiar with a computer console
enforcement is impossible, even for the usa within its own borders, so who fucking cares what the lawyers and bureaucrats and corporations say? they've already been routed around
i'm not saying you shouldn't get upset at the arrogance and the audacity of the american demands, i'm saying a bully making demands without any actual ability to follow through on his threats is nothing you have to pay any respect to
you simply pay the asshole lip service, put a big smile on your face, say "yes" to whatever the asshole wants, and then its business as usual, which is: ip laws mean nothing. all of the posturing and threats and demands mean nothing. there's NO ENFORCEMENT POSSIBLE
let all the corporate lawyers, midlevel bureaucrats amd other pointless yammering meat popsicles create all the ip laws and agreements they want
WHO FUCKING CARES. they can't enforce any of it. its the internet age. this is not vhs copy machines in a warehouse or cd duplicators in the closet. you can't shut down the internet
people: stop getting upset at these retards trying to enforce laws from a previous technological era and just igore them and their petty demands without any muscle behind them. they can't stop technological change. they are defunct, they just don't know it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
They need to stop tagging these as YRO, this has nothing to do with online. There needs to be a new section for copyright, considering how many articles relate to RIAA, MPAA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Politics is intertwined with everything we do, and in recent years micromanagement by lawfare is well on the way to strangle national and personal freedom.
The tendency to add laws to micromanage all human conduct is certainly of interest to nerds, as we are despised by the ignorant masses who will cheerfully shitcan OUR rights and freedoms for their convenience. In a world suffocated by the law of the rich and powerful, the only "free" people may one day be those who reject it entirely and are willing to pay the price.
I don't much care for the only "free" people being the Timothy McVeighs of the world. Instead of letting it get that far we need to watch for every threat to freedom and expose it.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
For the thousandth time, it's clearly "Your Rights" Online, not Your "Rights Online".
Or, if you prefer, think of it with a comma - Your Rights, Online.
Every non-Internet story has comments like yours; you'd think after a few hundreds stories like this you'd figure it out ;)
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.