Antigua Looks Closer To Legal "Piracy" of US-Copyrighted Works 327
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.
Copyright haven, eh? (Score:1, Insightful)
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?
Public domain (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score:5, Insightful)
So, to be clear, the United States democractically elected government passed a law, that applies only to United States citizens.
And the law says that US citizens can only use US-based casinos. Sounds like protectionism to me, which violates their WTO commitments.
Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because leaving the WTO makes sense. You can hang out with Somalia and Iran! You are why so many people consider America a dick nation. Sign up for international body, ignore its rulings, quit when it isn't just a rubber stamp setup for America.
Go read why this situation came about. Antigua has a good case.
Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score:4, Insightful)
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
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.
Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score:5, Insightful)
The Senate votes to modify or repeal it, and the President signs off. Same with any time the US does anything with a treaty.
That doesn't solve anything, because even if the US withdraws from the WTO, they cannot prevent Antigua from suspending US copyright within its borders. As I point out above, the WTO is the only thing that makes US copyright law valid anywhere outside the US in the first place. Withdraw from the WTO, and who's going to enforce US copyright law outside the US? Why would any country enforce US copyright law when the US acts to ignore international law in this area.
I suspect that media creation is an area where the US has a huge trade surplus. In a world where the US ignores everyone else's intellectual property law and everyone else ignores US intellectual property law, everyone else wins and the US loses. The US needs the rest of the world to play ball far, far more than everyone else needs the US to do so. This is a fact I think most sovereignty-nuts fail to understand: the US probably exports more of its laws than it imports others. In a world where the US decided not to subject itself to any international law, its own interests would be the ones most impacted.
Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly what Antigua is saying. There's earnings to be made by violating US copyrights.
Don't like it? National sovereignty; too bad.
Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score:5, Insightful)
So we aren't allowed to have any laws that might negatively impact the earnings of another nation? I'd prefer to have national sovereignty, thanks.
Sure we are. There's nothing requiring us to honor our international trade agreements. We can break 'em if we like. However, that means that other countries don't have to honor their sides of the bargains either... hence the WTO suspending US copyrights for Antigua and Barbuda. We ignore our obligations and damage them, so they can ignore their obligations to us.
No loss of sovereignty, just a consequence of what essentially boils down to international breach of contract.
Re:Hurr durr (Score:4, Insightful)
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!"
Because this has nothing to do with fair use. Fair use is restricted to non-commercial, educational, etc., use. This is about unrestricted, anything-goes use.
Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score:4, Insightful)
Both should respect each others property and businesses and laws
Guess who sets out those principles [wikipedia.org] of international respect for property, businesses etc? The same WTO that you want shut down.
The US agreed [wto.org] in 1995 to abide by the WTO's principles and rules. If they no longer want to, they're free to withdraw, but they can't expect other nations to respect the rules if they won't.
This will be educational (Score:4, Insightful)
As they should (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now the members of Congress could not agree that the earth is round, the sky is blue, and the sun is the center of the solar system.
Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score:4, Insightful)
The political structure inside the US isn't the WTO's problem. The WTO only deals with the US government. If the US federal government wasn't capable of enforcing its own adherence to the treaty it shouldn't have signed it in the first place.
Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Alas, Antigua is a nobody little country that we can fucking crush just like we crushed Cuba. So there goes your risible little fantasy.
Remind me again why you colonials had your little rebellion.
Re:Copyright haven, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
what actually should have followed was trade embargo on usa.
however, usa can't embargo antigua over this. without risking wto falling apart totally.
Re:Time to shut down the WTO (Score:4, Insightful)
It's interesting that the WTO set the limit on how much profit they can make, not how much they can cost the US in lost sales. Antigua could set up a BitTorrent based all-you-can-download service for say $1/year, with an profit level of say 4%, and make up their $21m in profit by getting 500m subscribers.