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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.
if Google would slip them all those books.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Any country which is willing to take on the eternal Jew is all right by me.
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.
Someone lobbied for this.
Tax havens designed to assist wealthy individual taxpayers have thrived for years, with the blessings of Congress.
Why should copyright havens be any different, as long as Congress approves?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
So, to be clear, the United States democractically elected government passed a law, that applies only to United States citizens. A bunch of foreign bankers have decided that they don't like that law, and so they are overruling it.
I'm sure Slashdot will be thrilled with any decision that hurts intellectual property enforcement, but try to look at what's going on here. It is really, really bad for democracy when elected officials can be overruled by overseas bankers. The United States is right to refuse to comply with the ruling, and should do everything in its power to resist. Our democracy ain't exactly working great, but it's better than a bunch of unelected bureaucrats ruling by decree from overseas.
Bomb them, cut their fiber optic cable, trade embargoes, prohibit tourism, not allow travel at all, etc.
The US will go apeshit over this, trust me.
Settlement? Not in a million years with this Weasel we have for president.
Or the US Corporate Congress.
So does that mean The Pirate Bay could move there and become 100% legal. That would be awesome.
Sounds less like 'piracy', and more like early America, where our forebears had little stake in maintaining the seemingly unjust control of foreign interests, but much interest in creating a large body of works that the public could use to generate culture in this new world.
I'm sure there were a lot of folks an ocean away decrying the 'free ride' those Americans were taking then too - but those resources had some heavy work to do, and it would rightly seem absurd at the to pay several times the cost of production for a 'licensed' book at the end of the day. What parts of culture we were able to 'steal' helped make us diverse and strong - and I don't blame any developing nation for wanting to repeat that, either officially, or unofficially like most nations.
Ryan Fenton
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
Why does this press release read like an EULA? I mean that is a retarded amount of long words to describe a very simple idea. Why can't they just write it up as "We're bringing back fair use, bitches!"
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Of course Nobel's Peace prize is awarded to those that employ his
invention -Dynamite- to achieve peace.
As I figure, there are enough lobbyists that something will happen here. So who's lobbies are larger, the US gambling industry, or the US media industry? Or will they join forces rattling sabers and try force? This will turn out to be an interesting piece of politics.
property/not property... we don't need to go there.
Rights? Isn't this about the revocation of rights?
Now if they felt like it, any Open Source project by US authors could be stuffed into a closed source derivative.
In general, the GPL is protect by copyright.
TFA suggests you have Windows 8 for $1 but ignores the fact there's no reason Microsoft would be bound to support any sort of sale made from that. They're not going to hand out CD Keys and their anti-piracy code can still do it's annoying thing.
But open source software, you already have all the bits. Just need to find valuable US Open Source software and resell them under a commercial license that otherwise wouldn't be available.
I'm too tired and drunk to remember or look up where I read this, but;
the US didn't recognize other country's IP until it became one of the countries that could profit from IP. IP isn't some universal law inherent to humanity, it's a social construct that's good for "advanced" countries. When the US didn't fit that category, they were happy to use Europe's inventions with no compensation.
Now, I'm not saying that IP is totally bad or useless, but there's no moral or legal reason why Antigua shouldn't go this route.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
In 3...2....1..
But their prime minister is low enough budget to have only had 3 pieces of security when I was there visiting (She and some diplomat were in a limo that parked at the beach we were visiting.)
There were three guys with SMGs on CHP-lookalike patrol bikes with chest hair showing, so I'm pretty sure they weren't wearing body armor and were mostly for mild show.
Now on the other hand they had camo vans full of straight up military personnel rolling around the island on any particular day and those guys were carrying full on automatic weapons from what I remember. Still pretty damn low budget though :)
Honestly it was a bit refreshing compared to the US. All that shit was out in the open, supposedly certain cities/areas had either corrupt police, or local gang control, but all the areas I passed through could've passed for rural America.
Assuming Antigua actually goes through with this, they will likely find that the lure of $21M in gross profit isn't enough to get any real businesses interested (they would no doubt not want to invest in a business that had a gross cap annual net of $10M or so).
It will probably end up being setup by some fly by night folks setting up a website in Antigua for the sole purpose to tick off the US with no intention of actually making money (or paying Antigua any local taxes on the $21M gross). I'm not sure Antigua will enjoy the likely consequences if such a fly-by-night organization was audited and the WTO allows the US to destroy what is left of their economy.
To avoid the likely backlash, the likely outcome is that they will allow some MPAA backed entity to just set up a shell company to donate the government $21+1M/year. That is peanuts to the movie industry...
it's so poetic in its justice. america finds that it cannot, by fiat, defy world wide laws and it doesn't suit them... so they violate the law they disagree with (SHOCK)... and so, as judgment, the plaintiff, in turn, gets to violate laws that the U.S. would very much like not to be violated... because... THESE are laws they like.
oh WTO... i'd kiss you if you weren't swimming with disease....
Just saying. Trigger happy US Military just need a feeble excuse and .... Antigua suddenly finds itself under the protection of the US, laws and all.
If you did that, no US patents would be valid anywhere else in the world. Monsanto, MicroSoft, Apple, and Motorola would be dead instantly. Google might stand a small chance, but you'd basically kill the complete USA economy the second this would come into effect.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Obligatory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZeOUI2zEbo
Or, if you weren't told that but worked it out yourself, you thought wrong.
It was to avoid paying for a license to the patents.
That is another reason why they have so many shell companies doing stuff to get the movie out there. WB hires Wonko Sane Inc to get cameras and cameramen for their picture. Make picture. Sell movie. Edison notices and goes against WB and told "they are not using your patents, Wonko Sane Inc is." Meanwhile Wonko Sane Inc goes bankrupt, the costs of the "owed money" that Wonko Sane Inc "absconded" with is used as a taxable loss on the movie profits by WB and the CEO of Wonko Sane Inc is never seen again.
Then WB hire Willy Wonka Inc. for their next picture. The CEO is really nothing like the CEO of Wonko Sane Inc. Honest.
As you can see, you're 100% behind removal of rights temporarily for criminals when they're not you or your livelihood.
The copy rights of the USA are being removed as punishment for their criminal activities, there being no prison big enough to hold the entire US population (though you're certainly trying to make that happen)
So I wonder if those 21 million that Antigua is allowed to make on US IP is the "fair value" of the movies - that would be no big deal for the film industry I believe. However, if it was the actual revenue Antigua makes, and given the likely global demand for these good, would it make sense for them to get those $21 million by selling movies not for $1 but for $0.01 to get the US angry?
It's not piracy, it's privateering when it's legal!
It seems that Antigua is now a rogue state. We really have to deal with those terrorists...
(Tries to locate Antigua on the map.)
Arghhh ... matey!
Unless the pirate in question is dying (and trying to scrawl a message on a cave), it's just "Arr."
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
* China signs a deal with the tiny Caribbean island of Antigua to build and run a Chinese naval base there in return for investment in the local economy.
* Antigua starts selling American manufacturing and weapons IP to Chinese firms.
The way I like to remember it is that there are some languages with no words for "yes" or "no". Instead, answers to yes-or-no questions repeat the verb in the positive or negative. (Hence "bullshit" from Mandarin bùshì meaning "is not", "fault", or "blame".) I imagine that the West Country-tinged pirate dialect has gone halfway to this, keeping "nay" for no but letting "are" substitute for "yes". "Are they?" "Arr."
a CIA sponsored coup? Or perhaps the US will find some "Weapons of Mass Destruction" there? Or perhaps trumped up charges of "human rights violations"?
Of course, what will make up the $21 million won't be goods sold at anything like US prices. For example, that $9.99 album you just bought on iTunes? Maybe it will be $0.99. Or less.
On the other hand, since there's nothing in it for Antuqua (beyond the initial $21 million), I don't see how they will care about selling intellectual property at cheap prices. I know pirates love the idea of Antigua selling giving stuff away or selling it for a penny, but what's the incentive (other than spite) for Antigua to sell all this stuff for cheap? It would still cost a fortune to setup the store for the stuff to get sold in the first place.
Just what we need is more people stealing my hard work that I put $$$, sweat, and more time than you can imagine to have
a bunch of scum steal it!
Thing that this is good? Just wait until the lose of revenue hits you in the pocket, your taxes will go up, your company will
pay more in the long run, and you won't get that nice raise, but a piece of paper printed on pink paper.
It's not a huge moral issue whether you, personally, get paid for work that you did outside whatever contract you have. In this case, it's a simple matter of contract law and has nothing to do with the subject. Moderators, please mod the parent off-topic.
I hope you learned your lesson about contracts. If you were smart, your lawyer would already have taken care of this. If your contract had said something about providing these additional services, and the accountant refused payment, then it would be trivial for a competent lawyer to get you paid. Y'know, assuming that there's any way to verify that you actually did the work. That also should be trivial; you have system logs for that, right?
You done fucked up at least three times. Now go hire a lawyer, set a goddamn fucking password login and user log for the fucking servers, and quit fucking bitching about random shit no one cares about.
I for one am glad to our Antiguan overlords for restoring US Copyright to its original Constitutional period of 17 years with one renewal during the life of the author.
Now if only they could do the same for patents and restore them to 13 years with one renewal by the human author.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --