Responding to US Gambling Law, Antigua Set To Launch "Pirate" Site 377
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."
Re:Who loves USA (Score:4, Informative)
The US has had a trade deficit for almost 40 years ...
Re:I Don't Get It (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:I Don't Get It (Score:5, Informative)
If you break a treaty with a foreign country, you have no reason to expect that country to respect other treaties you have with them. Since the WTO can't put the US in jail, it has to work with the tools it has.
Re:Who loves USA (Score:4, Informative)
He's talking about hand outs give to nations, not commerce.
Re:Payment processors (Score:5, Informative)
But that's the same situation with the gambling website. Antigua can run a gambling website and the entire rest of the world can frequent it.
Antigua is arguing that they should be able to have a business that caters to US customers with no afford to US law.
I have no moral problem with gambling myself, but I don't see how this will help Antigua's case. They still won't get US money and reselling digital goods that you don't own is just going to cost them the support they currently have from the WTO.
Recheck the last sentence from the summary. Specifically the "WTO-approved" bit.
Since the WTO doesn't have the authority to directly countermand the trade laws of its member nations, the way it deals with nations that defy its rulings is by permitting the injured party to retaliate with its own trade laws. In this case, the WTO ruled in 2007 that Antigua could retaliate against US trademarks and copyrights. So no... Antigua isn't going to suffer any sanction from the WTO for doing this.... in fact, it technically is a WTO sanction against the US.
Re:Thanks, Antigua! (Score:5, Informative)
You have pretty much all of your facts wrong. Here's the cliff notes [calvinayre.com]:
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.
Re:Payment processors (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Thanks, Antigua! (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Did you pay for that? (Score:2, Informative)
Redemption Song, by Bob Marley & the Wailers [wikipedia.org]
Re:Thanks, Antigua! (Score:4, Informative)
Actually google provides a much better definition...
So if we read the applicable term from the constitution,
"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"
This is what it would say written in modern English...
"The Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and our International Treaty Obligations are the supreme law of the land. Judges are required to honor our treaty obligations; in spite of anything the Constitution or laws of any state may say to the contrary."
Re:Who loves USA (Score:5, Informative)
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.
British support for US war lacking ! (Score:5, Informative)
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 [globalpolicy.org]
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 [wikipedia.org]
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 [wikipedia.org]
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.