Slashdot Mirror
Antigua Looks Closer To Legal "Piracy" of US-Copyrighted Works
Mark Gibbs writes "Shiver me timbers: Antigua and Barbuda's 'WTO Remedies Implementation Committee', is said to be recommending the establishment by the Government of Antigua & Barbuda of a statutory body to own, manage and operate the ultimate platform to be created for the monetisation or other exploitation of the suspension of American intellectual property rights authorised earlier this year by the WTO ... Additionally, an announcement regarding the opening of tenders for private sector participation in the operating of the platform should be announced shortly. Arghhh ... matey!" See also this Slashdot post (from 2007) for some background.
Its population is only 90,000, which is not even the population of a medium size city by US standards. It should be A-list for tourism, pulling steady streams of well-to-do visitors from the US, Western Europe, and Latin America.
Why does its government feel it has to resort to such cheapjack stunts as Internet gambling (not just brick and mortar casinos) and pompous-assed Swiss bureaucrat-sanctioned copyright piracy? Either they are tremendously greedy, or they have been bankrupted by incompetent and/or corrupt leaders.
The Senate votes to modify or repeal it, and the President signs off. Same with any time the US does anything with a treaty.
They are saying "repeal this law we don't like, or else we'll inflict as much damage as we possibly can on your economy". That's bad. If they want to play that game, we need to respond in kind.
America should be free to pass laws governing its own citizens. Antigua should be free to pass laws governing its citizens. Both should respect each others property and businesses and laws. Antigua's actions here are strikingly similar to the Opening of Japan.
The WTO didn't invent respect. Countries were quite capable of existing and trading and even having copyrights prior to 1995, believe it or not. It's amazing how quickly you would surrender your self-rule to bankers.
Yep, and I think if anything the WTO has been too gentle with the US. Our violation of our agreements has cost Antiqua and Barbudos ~$1B per year, and the WTO has only authorized them to make $21M per year from ignoring their agreement to honor our copyrights.
Bullshit. Antigua's GDP is a little over $1 billion, and yet you believe that this online gambling law is costing them "~$1B per year"? You believe that they could double their GDP purely through Americans playing online poker?
You're just eating up their propaganda. Think for yourself.