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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."
if they call the site "Pirates of the Caribbean"
It's goatse!!!!!!!!!!!
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
According to the WTO, the agreement the US signed, the aggrieved party can extract restitution in the form of selling the offending parties IP. It is all there in the treaty.
All that just because of $21 million yearly revenue loss of the US media industry (which is what the WTO allowed Antigua)?
Can the Antiguans set their own prices? Maybe 1000 movies for a penny? That would let them sell 2 trillion downloads. Not a good way to make money, but kind of a funny way to make the Yankee media companies take it in the shorts...
The US illegally abuses Antigua over IP, so Antigua abuses back. If the US respected rule of law and such, they'd not have started this mess. What a way to build a country indeed.
Learn to love Alaska
FUCK'S SAKE! I don't AGREE with the anti-internet-gambling laws, I think they're full of shit -- BUT THIS SHIT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. Antigua needs to get the fuck over it and move on.
Why? Or, why Antigua? Why doesn't the USA just get over it and follow the law?
Want an analogy? American alcohol companies get pissed they're not allowed to sell to Shariah-law nations, so the US decides to just steal their shit until they capitulate.
Not a good analogy. Neither American nor local companies can sell alcohol in such countries. The beef is that the USA is protecting its local gambling but forbidding international competition, which it has agreed not to do through its membership in the WTO
If I wrote a novel and Antigua started selling it, undercutting me and not compensating me in any way.. yes it would be just about time to grab your guns. This isn't about them being wronged, it's about them not respecting the sovereignty of another nation. They cannot dictate our laws, regardless of if those laws are dumb.
Copyright in stuff you write only extends outside the USA because of agreements with other sovereign nations. If the USA unilaterally breaks those agreements, then it's reasonable for the other parties to reciprocate. And yes, that means YOU got screwed. By your government. Not, actually, by the other nation. Direct your bile accordingly.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
You have pretty much all of your facts wrong. Here's the cliff notes:
Antigua believed the US effort to prevent Antigua-licensed online gambling companies from offering services to US punters was in violation of international trade law. In 2005, a World Trade Organization (WTO) appellate body agreed, and told the US to either shut down its domestic online horse betting operations or allow Antigua equal access. Instead, America chose ‘none of the above’ and in 2007 the WTO ruled Antigua was owed an annual $21m in compensatory damages. If the US refused to pay, the WTO authorized Antigua to collect by other means, such as disregarding US copyrights to a value equal to the annual damages owed.
US has the right to control gambling within its borders.
They pass a law limiting US based citizens from from accessing these sites and or banks from transferring money to those sites.
While at the same time publicly and officially supporting online gambling, so long as it was within the US. A breach of a treaty the US agreed to.
And you are ok with this?
Yes.
Go back, reread what I just wrote, swapping Antigua for the US and vice-versa. Would you STILL feel the same way if the US declared all Antiguan copyrights fair game, simply because Antigua didn't want some predatory US industry doing business in their country?
The US is quite happy with the "predatory industry" so long as it's US companies preying on US residents. I'd be happy with it going the other way, but it *never* is. I was happy with Allofmp3, who violated no law, Russian, American, or international. But they were shut down because of US bribes and threats. Again, the US bullies internationally and ignores any law they don't like, or makes up ones they wish existed (see Kim Dotcom case falling apart in NZ and the court agreeing that the FBI involvement was illegal).
Why shouldn't Antigua honor US Gambling laws when doing business in the US?
They did. They were shut down anyway. Did you miss that point in the whole thing? They followed the laws a US gambling site would have to operate under (other than being in the US), and the US shut them down anyway.
Learn to love Alaska
have any evidence of that, idiot?
if anything, it's the reverse: at the present rate of incarceration, every US citizen will be a convict by 2076, which is basically how Australia started out
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
You misunderstand. The reason that the WTO sided with Antigua (and allowed Antigua to take the action it is planning) is that the US allows its citizens to gamble. In banning US citizens from gambling on Antigua, the US was not taking a moral stance, but instead was taking an anti-free trade stance.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
That's too funny. USians use the WTO to try and fuck over other countries all the time, then ignore the WTO everytime it does something illegal, like stealing canadian lumber.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
They're doing it flagrantly because it's explicitly tit-for-tat. It's their way of pointedly asking "Do we have rules or not?"
Let's say you and I are sociopathic assholes, so whereas most people might have some kind of implicit social contract, and a sense of how people should act decently to one another, we're jerks and write up and agree to some formal rules. Among these rules are things like "Neither party will ever hit the other in the head with a hammer and then steal their wallet while the victim is incapacitated." Call that the WIPO rule.
We have another rule too. It's "Neither party will ever vandalize the other's car." Call that the WTO rule.
Then I go and vandalize your car, totally in violation of the rules. I don't deny it, either. Instead, I explain I had good reasons to do it. "I really wanted to vandalize your car, and it looked so vulnerable. I just couldn't help it!" but whether I had a good reason or not, you claim I broke our agreement. You might not feel all that hurt about the car, but breaking the agreement .. oh dear. We're sociopaths, but we're not uncivilized, are we?
After my amazing explanation for why I did it, you ask me: "Are you going to do it again?" and I answer "Yeah, probably. Your car still does look pretty vandalizable, and I really like vandalizing cars." You answer "What about our agreement?" and I just shrug. You ask, "Are our agreements important?" and I shrug again!!
You go see our mutual acquaintances, perhaps some people with whom I also have some agreements. They're a little concerned to hear I value our agreements so little. Will their cars be next? They think it over and say, "Yeah, Sloppy broke his agreement to not vandalize your car. You should get even."
So you do. You hit me in the head with a hammer and I wake up without a wallet. You do it openly, too. Our acquaintances nod with approval, even though you're breaking the agreement now. I ask, "How can you do that?!?"
You explain: if I think the rules are so important, and I have such a problem with being hit with hammers, THEN MAYBE I SHOULD STOP FUCKING AROUND WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S CARS.
I don't know what I'll do. I still really do like vandalizing cars. I'd like to vandalize your car again, and that other dude with whom I have a no-vandalize agreement. But I'm not sure I like this hammers development. OTOH, I don't know, maybe it's worth it. The hammers hurt and I don't like losing my wallet all the time, but the cars! Oh, the cars! That's so much fun.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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.
It's AUSSIE!!! Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! :D We don't go around biting off bat heads you dingo!
The WTO Agreement is a treaty. This is what our constitution says about our treaty obligations. "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
So a treaty obligation such adhering to WTO decisions has the equal weight to the Constitution of the United States.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
You could try an experiment. Get yourself a few wheelbarrows of cash money. Go downtown, and start handing out money to passerby. Rinse and repeat daily for a few years.
Come back one day, without your wheelbarrow, and see how many people are willing to buy your lunch for you.
Love? Yeah, right. Propping up a puppet in Egypt has charmed the Egyptian people, hasn't it? Current events in Egypt today seem to show that US aid is a factor in their politics, but it isn't a ruling factor. And, what the US wants Egypt to do isn't a factor at all, seems to me.
Some wise people have said that you can't buy love. If there is love for the US, I'd wager that it's found in our sister countries that were English colonies. Maybe France. Possibly some "like" in other nations, but not a lot of "love". Everyone, everywhere, loves our money, as long as it continues to flow. Even North Korea loves our money, and they'll take all that they can get, by whatever means that doesn't require them to bow down to our wishes. Ditto with Iran.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.