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Responding to US Gambling Law, Antigua Set To Launch "Pirate" Site
An anonymous reader writes "The Government of Antigua is planning to launch a website selling movies, music and software, without paying U.S. copyright holders. The Caribbean island is taking the unprecedented step because the United States refuses to lift a trade 'blockade' preventing the island from offering Internet gambling services, despite several WTO decisions in Antigua's favor. The country now hopes to recoup some of the lost income through a WTO approved 'warez' site."
Is there any US-loving country besides UK? I wonder ...
Collective punishment for US copyright holders. Next they will invite the Mafia to start selling drugs to their citizens. What a way to build a country.
if they call the site "Pirates of the Caribbean"
Prepare to get Liberated.
The United States can't really stop Antigua from running a gambling website.
They can however forbid US payment processors from processing online gambling payments. If that is how they're stopping Antigua now, I can't imagine this warez site will be different. Do you think US payment processors will handle these payments?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I'm curious if this will cause the construction of the 'Great Firewall of America'
I wonder if they can have Kim Dotcom move Mega (mega what?) to their country.
I think the USA is gonna be "liberating" real soon now. You HAVE to follow USA's moral rules... If they were allowing child labor, breaking unions, trafficking in slave mined diamonds that would be perfectly fine. This move attacks the USA's "nobility" class that owns the RIGHTS to make things... And making things is profit.
...It also would serve as a major impediment to foreign investment in the Antiguan economy, particularly in high-tech industries,” the U.S. added. Antigua doesn’t appear to be impressed much by these threats and is continuing with its plan.
LOL? Who gives a rat's ass for high-tech in Antigua? I suspect life there is about tourism, boobs and booze!
High-tech to Antigua is like McAfee or Kim Dotcom parking his yacht there!
The country needs something to do with those soldiers coming back from the Afghanistan.
On this blog Awesome!
The Caribbean island is taking the unprecedented step because the United States refuses to lift a trade "blockade" preventing the island from offering Internet gambling services, despite several WTO decisions in Antigua's favor. The country now hopes to recoup some of the lost income through a WTO approved 'warez' site.
I'm pretty sure Antigua and Barbuda attended and signed the Berne Convention and have joined WIPO. Furthermore I believe the WTO is fully on board with all that considering their TRIPS agreement. So how in the hell is there such a thing as "a WTO approved 'warez' site" and how on Earth does Antigua think the WIPO is going to view this?
Note: I'm not saying what they're doing is wrong or right, I'm just asking how they are doing it given their history. I mean, sure, this stuff happens all over China but the government pays all the copyright holders lip service about how they're cracking down on it. If the Chinese government profits from it, they don't do so flagrantly like this appears to.
My work here is dung.
The US imposes its economic interests and cultural values on other sovereign nations every day.
The US has de facto jurisdiction almost everywhere on this planet, and there's nothing we can do about it as we don't get a vote, we're not Americans, we're just backward savages who don't understand what democracy and freedom means.
We are allowed to elect our leaders, as long as they are friendly to US interests. As a result we a free to be exploited by the US government and US based corporations in the guise of 'free trade', which in practice means the US government and certain corporations are free to acquire the natural assets of the client states ensuring the local population never sees the benefits.
About to become the biggest tech capital in the world.
Good job guys!
Are they going to be charging for these downloads? Or are they going to be making their money through ads, the way MegaUpload did?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It's goatse!!!!!!!!!!!
a middle finger pointing at like the outline of the United States.
Be seeing you...
Or did Jamaica copy of it?
Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Put my music on computer chips,
Minutes after it came out
Dey had da dvd rips.
But my encryption was made strong
And de tracker updated nightly.
We download in this generation
Triumphantly.
Emancipate yourselves from license slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for music industry,
'Cause none of them can stop the files.
How long shall they make their profits,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
We need movies and songs and games
Don't forget e-books
As a former resident of another Caribbean nation, this isn't very surprising outside the fact the government is directly involved.
Where I lived, there was the government "Ministry of Intellectual Property & Copyright" or something very similar, yet opposite the building was a street seller with counterfeit DVD's and CD's for sale.
The fact is in these countries, you pretty much can't buy music or movies legitimately that are otherwise available internationally. There's not enough market to make it worth setting up distribution networks and retailers. So what does get into these countries is often bought at retail in the US, shipped to the country, heavily taxed on import, then 100% markup on the total.
They often don't even bother to make promotional youtube videos for mainstream musicians available in these countries, so why would they bother actually trying to sell to a non-existant, economically fragile country of a couple hundred thousand people, many of whom are in poverty.
It just makes sense.
Why is Snark Required?
either deliberately misleading or is just plain stupid by saying that IP violation is theft. It is not. Theft is a criminal offense, IP violation is a civil one.
This is a rogue band of corporate fascists who have hijacked us. If you define them as the USA, then even the USA doesn't like the USA. So, speaking as a real American I say, "go for it"!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
It sounds like a great time to install a pro-US democratic leader. Clearly the people are not being represented here by corrupt Antiguan monarchs and need our help. God bless America.
http://interserver.net/
One of the things the WTO does when a country is found to violate WTO rules on tariffs, and where other methods of resolving the violation have not proven fruitful, is grant the victim special privileges against the aggressor in compensation (WTO members, by virtue of joining the WTO, grant the WTO authority to do this.) Relaxation of obligations under TRIPS is precisely what Antigua is seeking from the WTO in their application for permission to retaliate against the US violations. Antigua is hoping that the WTO
furthermore it's not even a violation... it's the contract - according to the wto treaty.
when repo guys come over, it's not theft or violation.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Tell that to Aaron Swartz and Kim Dotcom.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Never mind that old "piracy is not theft" bit. The really funny part is the "government-authorized piracy" line - that sounds like the very definition of copyright in the first place since copyright is purely a government created exception to the natural right to freedom of expression.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Understanding the law has part to play in crafting sound bites to sell the boss' position to the people who don't know/care enough to understand it.
And that "Notable residents" entry in wikipedia ! OMG ! I want in ! Where do I sign ?!
Do they need a PC technician ? Will work for food and rum !
...the US government isn't getting paid. The gov't doesn't give a crap about morality...drink, smoke, gamble all you want...as long as the government is getting their share. They will feign a slight interest in morality/safety when it makes them money...try to drive down the block with no seat belt...drive a few miles per hour over an arbitrarily low 'speed limit' and they will happily take your money - then let you continue on with no real punishment so they can take another cut in a few months. To really tell how much they care, try to buy a bottle of alcohol without paying tax on it... they will happily poison you to death!
What do we do? We send the Marines!
For might makes right,
And till they've seen the light,
They've got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
'Till somebody we like can be elected.
Have gnu, will travel.
Antigua is being taken for a ride just like they were by Stanford. They are following the stupid advice of this lawyer and paying him millions and in then end it's going to do nothing but cost them more.
Out here in the real world it doesn't matter than the WTO allowed this. The fact is that the US can take sovereign action against Antigua even if it violates WTO rules. Antigua only recourse is another WTO hearing and sanction at which point the US enacts more measures.
In the end Antigua will suffer more than they can inflict damage. It would be trivial for the US to bar all US citizens from spending money in Antigua and overnight their economy would collapse as nearly 90% of their tourism is from Americans.
They are being taken in by another Sanford and he'll make millions and sell them down the river.
From the article:
“Government-authorized piracy would undermine chances for a settlement that would provide real benefits to Antigua. It also would serve as a major impediment to foreign investment in the Antiguan economy, particularly in high-tech industries,”
Or will several major American copyright holders pay off the Antiguan government in exchange for not selling THEIR media?
People can switch from AmEx to MasterCard, no problem. AmEx, Visa and MasterCard are all American companies. So is PayPal.
Any non-US payment processor (are there any?) will listen to the US government because they more than likely need to do business in the US and are therefore subject to US law. And since this kind of website is illegal just about everywhere, don't expect any non-US governments to stand up to support Antigua, either.
So, who is going to process these payments again?
1c/album and 1c/game.
And 21Million will last a fair old while.
Moreover, since this is licensed from Antigua, these could be licensed FREE TO COPY.
The law of copyright has been suspended and the government of Antigua can give it whatever license they say is the legal requirement.
If the USA wants to play REALLY hard ball, their balls had BETTER be damn hard.
Really.
The world itself won't put up with that kind of shit and you can't handle it.
The only war you've won is the one where you were still part of the British Empire.
Frankly, you're arrogance ensures your incapacity to do your job.
very soon. Get ready.
They may even have weapons of mass destruction. I can see mushroom clouds.
In the first paragraph this quote says:
either deliberately misleading or is just plain stupid by saying that IP violation is theft. It is not. Theft is a criminal offense, IP violation is a civil one.
I take it you haven't read the No Electronic Theft Act? (Yes, Theft is right there in the title). IP violation can be a criminal offense in the US
That would indeed be quite an accident since it would involve firing the missile into an alternate reality. There is no presidential compound: Antigua is ruled by the Queen and Buckingham palace probably has missile defences. However this does mean you already have some experience in this sort of revolution but this time around you'd be playing the part of the French.....bonne chance with that.
Proceed fucking them back signed the WTO.
So are the purchasers still pirates? Just guaranteed (hopefully) a high quality, virus free experience?
I assume the US would still treat any of its citizens who purchase these as pirates, but what about Canada or the UK?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Right, receiving IP without paying for it is not theft. It's actually just fraud. Which is both a criminal offense and a civil one.
Actual damages would be no greater than the expected wholesale price of a lawfully made copy, possibly less. I'm not aware of anything in the Berne Convention resembling the U.S. scheme of statutory damages for infringement of copyright in works whose copyright is registered with the Copyright Office, especially because Berne has no concept of copyright registration.
The US copyright industry cannot stand for this - even if the damage is actually minimal, it'll further establish a culture of infringement that could destroy them in the long term. The obvious solution is for them to make another attempt at SOPA, this time by utilising their weasel powers to the fullest - expect it to be passed as a rider on an unrelated act, or introduced on a day when most of congress is busy with other matters. Then they can simply block the site at the border.
This whole thing might be just a bargining ploy, though. The US government owes them money, but has no incentive to pay, and doing so would be quite embarassing for a number of politicians who run with 'internet gambling ruins families' as part of their platform. Now Antigua has an 'or else' they can use to demand what they are owed.
Even according to the NET act, copyright infringement isn't theft. The term has just been misapplied to copyright infringement so many times that it has become - quite intentionally - a recognised label in common use even if not legally accurate.
Government-authorized piracy. Can we just stretch the language a little further and call it privateering?
contemplating “government-authorized piracy”
If it's government authorized, then they're not pirates, they're privateers.
We all know here in Aus that Dingoes steal babies, not bats. Bloody drongo's!
We all know America is going to implode in the next 5 years. They have no friends anymore. All countries just give them lip service now simply to get its import money. They alienated every other country with the 'Global Financial Crisis' to protect its own economy, with a socialist move to bail out the corrupt banking institutions. They are presently even alienating its citizenry by taking away rights and freedoms. They are doing a Hitler on a political scale, and the world knows it.
So, who cares, let them die in a chemical fire of their own making.
we could be quite certain the Israelis and Brits would get beat up with us
You are joking right?
You do realise that in 2001, 75% of the British public did not want to be part of the Afghan war.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/154/26553.htm1
That 1 Million people (1 in 60 of the population of the country) went to London to protest against the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protest
That parliament only voted for war because Tony Blair (subsequently one of the most vilified prime ministers in modern times) outright lied to parliament.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodgey_Dossier
Sorry to bust your bubble.... but Britain & the rest of Europe isn't prepared to unilaterally support the US in war as you seem to believe. Thankfully, support for such wars is very much lacking by the majority of educated, intelligent Americans in your own country too.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
Hmmm
All of the above may indeed be correct, however what the UK People support and what the Politicians approve are two entirely different things.
There is a lot of tight-assed squabbling in the comments about who is the holier.... But hell, any country leaning on the hells kitchen/ dogs breakfast which is current US copyright law gets my support. This whole lawyer sustaining, corporate-intellectual-property-is-US-property bullshit has to be stopped... So go Antigua - and thanks for soothing my inner anarchist...
Yes, the title of a bill is certainly indiciative of what it really does or means. The fact that 'theft' is in the title is, if anything, evidence that it's not theft because the titles of acts are generally political posturing that has nothing to do with the law itself. Copyright infringement is not theft technically, legally, or morally, and this isn't even copyright infringement since it's legal.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
what the fuck are you smoking that makes you think it's fraud? Fraud involves deception, so unless one party was confused about who or what they were dealing with, no fraud has occurred.
Also, nobody is 'receiving IP.' You receive a copy. 'Receiving IP' would be a transfer of a copyright, patent, or trademark.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I will use this service just so I can refer to myself as a "music privateer".
Oh, now I SO want an official Antiguan Letter of marque
Heck, I'll even pay for it.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Look for upcoming Hollywood action movies to feature bad guys from Antigua now.
Granted there are a lot of cables going every which way over there. But a lot of the connectivity seems to go via British holdings up to Miami eventually. Or is Venezuela a connectivity powerhouse I didn't know about? I don't see them using their troposphere scattering to Europe but then again, maybe they will just run a shell game on mega? The links are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECFS_(cable_system)
http://www.submarinecablemap.com/
http://www.indexmundi.com/antigua_and_barbuda/telephone_system.html
http://www.globalcaribbean.net/pages/en/network-system/route-description.php?lang=EN
Yeah, deception. The deception of the IP owner saying "I'm selling these MP3's here", and you going in and saying "I'll take your MP3, but I'm not going to give you any money for it". It's the same as non-payment of a dentist bill. You're not taking away the dentist's ability to serve other patients; you're depriving him of the money that his services implicitly require.
Allow the US to screw them over as much as possible, because the US can possibly screw them over even more.
Under Hollywood Accounting rules, Antigua would need to set up a store that sells Imaginary Property (IP). Then they would need to set up several other organizations that bill the store various "fees". Until the store eventually turns a profit, that $21 Million that Antigua is owed cannot be repaid. I hope those "fees" won't get too high. I mean, it could take Billions of dollars in sales in order to eventually turn $21 Million in profit. Heck, the Star Wars movies from the 1970's still are not profitable!. So poor Antigua may never get the $21 Million that the WTO says it is owed.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Responding to recent news, thousands of internet entrepreneurs have left the United States to start new businesses in Antigua.
No trees were killed to send this message, but a great number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
Because Buccaneers was the term used for government-sanctioned pirates back in the days of flying Jolly Rogers and lots of swashbuckling over fair maidens on sandy beaches with hidden treasures and parrots.
we could be quite certain the Israelis and Brits would get beat up with us
You are joking right? You do realise that in 2001, 75% of the British public did not want to be part of the Afghan war. http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/154/26553.htm1
From your linked article:
The biggest poll of world opinion was carried out by Gallup International in 37 countries in late September (Gallup International 2001). It found that apart from the US, Israel and India a majority of people in every country surveyed preferred extradition and trial of suspects to a US attack.
This was what we wanted as well. Then the Taliban told us to go fuck ourselves. Then we blew the shit out of them. Every country in the world either got behind us or was at least smart enough to get out of the way of the injured, rabid, bulldog that Afghanistan had just poked with a stick.
I'm with you in that Iraq was unjustified and stupid and nobody had any business in that mess (least of all the U.S.), and you can argue that Afghanistan has been poorly managed, but that initial invasion was inevitable and pretty thoroughly justified.
To connect up with a more current possibility - if North Korea were to do something as thoroughly boneheaded as the launch and detonate a nuclear weapon at the western seaboard of the United States I am absolutely certain that Britain, Israel, and probably the majority of the free world would jump on board with an invasion. Heck, if NK was that utterly stupid, China would probably bitch slap them for it.
The answer is simple, tax all online gambling, U.S. sites or international. 50% of the take would stop most online gambling in the U.S. If you are so hooked on the gambling "bug", then you must go to a physical gambling site, either a casino or your local 7-Eleven for lotto tickets or other forms of gambling. This would at least make it harder for the average person to gamble the family into the poorhouse. When I say "50% of the take" I mean the profit of those running the online sites, not the winnings of the poor schmucks who still believe they have a chance in hell of making it big gambling. Sure, sure, I know, the a-holes running the gambling sites would just lower the "chances" of winning, but, this might just be a good wake-up-call to those who aren't quite totally hooked on gambling to curtail their interests. I myself have done a little gambling at casinos and the odd lottery ticket or "scratcher", but, it didn't take me long to realize the incredibly long odds of ever coming out ahead or even breaking even. My advice is; take your gambling money and go do something fun like parachute from a plane, or some similar adrenaline producing event where you actually do see a profit for your hard-earned money!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
According to the NET act, copyright infringement is a criminal offense in some cases which is what I was replying to.
I'm not arguing whether or not it is theft, but the contents of the act do make it criminal which the parent argues otherwise. I was additionally simply pointing out that while he argues it is not Theft simply because it is not a criminal offense, the very bill that does make it a criminal offense contains Theft in the title
You're right there. The NET act makes copyright a criminal offence if done for profit, but defines that profit in such a broad manner that almost anything qualifies.