U.S. Puts 12 Nations On Watch For Piracy 429
ColinPL writes with a link to an AP article about a public scolding the US has given China, Russia, and several other nations. Failure to 'sufficiently protect' American copyrights is the cause of the Bush administration's ire, and has resulted in these countries showing up on a 'priority watch list' that could eventually lead to economic sanctions. "In addition to Russia and China, the 10 countries placed on the priority watch list were Argentina, Chile, Egypt, India,
Israel, Lebanon, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Venezuela. In elevating Thailand to the priority watch list, the administration said it was concerned by a range of issues including a 'deteriorating protection for patents and copyrights.' Thailand is currently in a dispute with international drug companies including Abbott Laboratories of the United States over the cost of drugs to fight AIDS and other diseases. The Thai government in January issued compulsory licenses allowing the use of much cheaper generic versions of two leading drugs in Thailand."
That told them! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:That told them! (Score:4, Funny)
Everyboy knows that! Duh! C'mon.
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the US also makes an effort to hunt suppliers (t
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Re:That told them! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:That told them! (Score:4, Insightful)
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The reason that Israel is on the list is completely different: Teva, which -- allegedly -- in its research, does not respect American pharmaceutical patents, and is one of the world's largest generic drugs companies. American pharma companies wage a battle against Teva for many years now. Teva's success is causing American companies losses in many billions (way beyond what Teva
Re:That told them! (Score:5, Funny)
So, uhh there you go.
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Just as an example, you can walk into any major bus station in Israel and find a store that sells exclusively copied CDs and DVDs. It will take the police months to close them down, and take their inventory away, but in that time they've made so mu
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The real joke is putting Israel on the list. Even if the US were to fine them they'd just get more US taxpayer money sent in the next lot of "foreign aid".
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Re:That told them! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That told them! (Score:4, Insightful)
At the same time, China has numerous other buyers. Europe, Australia, other countries in Asia, including S. Korea and Japan. Japan and Korea still make their own electronics, but a lot of their other goods are manufactured in China. I believe even their car companies have plants there...
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Re:That told them! (Score:4, Insightful)
adjust for inflation.
Can't get to the article.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Let's be honest (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's be honest (Score:5, Informative)
Except that they can't do much. Sure, the U.S. government can impose economic sanctions on non-compliant countries, but that only takes you so far. The U.S. Constitution requires that the federal government respect the sovereignty of foreign nations. U.S. courts won't typically touch a copyright infringement case if the infringement occurs overseas.
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Re:Let's be honest (Score:5, Insightful)
That's odd, because I could have sworn Iraq was a foreign nation with its own sovreign government until a few years ago.
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Re:Let's be honest (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is, speaking as a European, nobody outside the US gives a damn about US laws. In fact, we find attempts like this to assert themselves legally, to be rather lame and sad. It's just hot air and rhetoric for the voters back home I guess
Anyway, in the highly improbable event that any of these countries paid any attention the the US on piracy and actually stopped it, there's still be many other countries to which pirates could easily and successfully move to. There's also plenty of piracy from within US borders too.
The only way to beat piracy is to include fair use in copyright - assuming copyright needs to exist at all.
The *IAA needs to develop new business models or simply die - those are the only two choices available.
Re:Let's be honest (Score:5, Insightful)
Bombing the crap out of people always ends up with them doing the best they can to bomb the crap out of you and it's noticeable that all the worldwide military might of the US still hasn't defeated terrorism.
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Re:Let's be honest (Score:5, Insightful)
no increase observed in the part the US cares about - the US.
Re:Let's be honest (Score:5, Insightful)
If bin Laden's goal is to, by terrorist attacks, cause material damage to the USA, he doesn't have to attack us. The USA has an autoimmune disorder of the first degree -- we're doing more damage to ourselves than bin Laden could ever dream of doing.
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Iraq: over 3000 Americans and 60000 (conservative estimate) Iraqis dead
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This is very true - however, the Bush administration is notable in their "every other country must do what we say" attitude. Even for the US, their arrogance is astounding. Most past administrations have been rather less willing to spend what little diplomatic advantages
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It's not as if there is much the US can do to threaten China. Any trade sanctions would hurt the US more and an military threat has the "problem" that the Chinese c
Facts - MAFIAA skews Dem big-time (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, the entertainment industry gives at least twice as much to Democrats as they do to Republicans. Since 1990, they've given $137,219,474 to Dems, and $63,574,385 to Repubs.
The recording industry is even more skewed [opensecrets.org], giving $13,635,639 to Dems and $3,727,147 to Repubs since 1990. That's 78% to Dems - with some election cycles having 85% of the recording industries political contributions going to Dems.
But that's nothing compared to the movie industry [opensecrets.org], which gave $47,800,285 to Dems and $7,192,062 to Repubs since 1990. Up to 93% of movie industry political contributions have gone to Dems in some election cycles, with that number never lower than 78%.
There's a reason why the DMCA was signed by a Democratic President. Hell, there are millions of reasons, all of them green...
The cognitive dissonance among sheltered
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Mod the parent up.
This is more about money from the "mafiaa" than effective policy.
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So basically, what you are saying is that Republicans are cheaper to bribe? </facetious>
Quit trying to make this a "my team is better than yours" issue. Halivar was saying that both Republicans and Democrats are corrupt, and he was right.
USA (Score:5, Insightful)
You have your own part of the world. Please stay within it's boundaries and spend the saved time READING Wikipedia's article on law. You DO NOT and SHALL NOT ever control other nations laws. You cannot even abide by the very laws you were founded on these days, so why do you expect others to do the same?
Lots of love
Rest of the world.
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You DO NOT and SHALL NOT ever control other nations laws
WIPO pretty much propagates what the US congress lays down in law. To take the section on Egypt asan example in the Special 301 Report, the country is being egged on to sign on and apply WIPO.
US free trade zones also carry very strict IP enforcement agreements as strings, and yet developing nations still fall over themselves to hop on board with these.
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Here's the only law that ever worked: everybody can take a shot.
If USA has mechanisms to pressure other countries, it'll do so. If it has ability to avoid its own laws, it'll do so. It took a shot and succeeded.
Laws are only as strong as the mechanisms built to withstand them. Interests and power always will achieve more.
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Nowhere in that constitution does it state the congress has the right to restrict the freedom of citizens of other countries the same way.
That would be similar to Iran demanding that women in the US should wear burkas.
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I'd love to see how all those millions of guns stand up to a few thousand Indian/Pakistani/Russian nukes.
I wonder (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
I noticed this absurdity last week when I had to download a pirated version of a CD I had just bought so that I could actually play it in my car.
Utterly absurd and needless to say, the next album I want I will downloading (via illegal sources of course, those legal sources are the worst of all).
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Oops, it seems even previewing a comment doesn't always stop typos.
Wow - gross generalization AND wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow - now that's a gross over-generalization, and only part of the first sentence is even close to right here...
Going back to front (sort of):
"Nowadays there is no compelling reason to buy things from the copyright holders other than maybe feeling guilty or an affinity for tangible copies."
To meet one gross over-generalization with another, you mean besides keeping the copyright holders in business so that they can continue to produce content? There's a basic economic reality you're missing here - producing any product or content takes time and resources, and to continue to do that requires that money is made to pay for the time and resources.
(And, before somebody bites my head off, yes, I know the internet is a cheap means of distribution, and yes, I know the RIAA treats its content creators horribly - I'm talking in the broadest of strokes here. When it comes down to it, any content creator needs to at least eat.)
But, you know what, you're right - we don't need that pesky literature, movies, and music anyway. If shadow puppets were good enough for our ancestors, they're good enough for us!
"ESPECIALLY since the pirated versions often are much better than the retail versions in functionality and portability."
Um, no, not really. Windows Vista is DRM-happy to the point of stupidity, and the RIAA has done everything it can to drive music fans into the hands of file-sharers, but that doesn't mean that the greater utility lies in files on a computer. Actually, in most cases a physical media tends to have better functionality and portability.
Take movies for example - I can go visit my parents in another city and bring a couple of movies along, and the DVDs are quite light, easy to carry, and all I have to do is put them into any DVD player in North America to have them work. No file copying, no waiting for a download to finish, no taking up space on my hard disk - everything is just on the DVD. When it comes to the DRM stupidity we have been seeing, we have to remember that it's the DRM causing the problems, not the physical format itself.
"If anyone realizes that having an economy that is increasingly dependent on "intellectual property" is a bad thing."
This is the one place where you are at least partially correct. But you shouldn't be saying "intellectual property" here - you should be saying "service-based," because that is what is really there. The United States used to have some of the greatest manufacturing power in the world, and now it seems it actually produces very little. But that's a more complicated argument, and not really relevant to this discussion.
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As long as there is money to be made , the Paris Hiltons and Britney's of the world will continue to produce "content". If they would stop, good riddance.
There was "content producers" long before there were copyrights (think cave men) and I predict there will be "content producers" long after copyrights are void.
Giving Disney Corporation 100+ years of copyright is not necessary for Disney Corporation to produce new cont
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1. In my business (writing), most often the copyright holder is the content creator. And there are plenty of patents that are held by the people who created the invention.
2. Before copyright law, there were wealthy patrons. Copyright law serves an important purpose in a free market economy. This is verbatim from another of
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For example, watching a movie on the big screen over watching it at home. Going out with friends, maybe have dinner before or after, perhaps a drink (before or after). People do this already. Perhaps that's why the MPAA isn't nearly as concerned about piracy, with some rare exceptions.
For music, there's nothing like actually going to a concert. So instead of using CD's to make money,
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There is no problem with a service based economy. Most of the world is changing from a production based to a service based one, and most people are happy with that.
The problem is when you want to sell the same, easily replicated product by a large margin and expect everybody to be nice and buy it from you.
The third world (Score:4, Interesting)
So these other countries must be doing this in huge quantities to be on this list. It's rather impressive really.
Re:The third world (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you will find that there are factories in China making pirate DVDs that get shipped in bulk to just about every other country in the world. There are factories in Hong Kong that start printing the retail DVDs to stock up for the retail release, of course this printing is done while the movie is still in theatres, but often theses Hong Kong factories are also the source of the early DVD rips where rogue employees get a copy out of the factory somehow.
Counterfeiting is also big in China. There they even managed to set up a whole fake NEC organisation that was buying from the same suppliers that the real NEC did, see http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/27/business/ne c.php [iht.com]. They even print foreign food labels and put in on local produce. It's amazing stuff. There was even a case where they set up a car factory right next to a GM factory and were churning out the same car. Check this out http://www.automotoportal.com/article/chinese-rip- offs-of-western-automakers [automotoportal.com] Makes a truck of burnt DVDs look like childs play.
O RLY? (Score:2)
Failure to 'sufficiently protect' American copyrights is the cause of the Bush administration's ire ...
Which, five or six years ago, might have meant something. Today, it doesn't. Can't imagine why that might be.
What? No Canada? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Belarus, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, South Korea, Kuwait, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Well I'll have none of this second best business. Fire up the torrents! We'll show those Peruvians who the real pirates are!
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All the while ignoring the fact that handicam rips are only actually about 1% of the problem.
So America just did a Colbert.. (Score:2)
Last time (Score:2)
What are you talking abour? (Score:2)
One could say the industry was exploited as an anonymous money laundering service by tax evaders, drug kingpins (not to be confused with
I see Canada isn't on there... (Score:5, Informative)
Piracy? (Score:4, Informative)
Piracy - The lost battle (Score:3, Informative)
First of all, piracy [wikipedia.org] is not murder on the high seas, it's robbery on the high seas. Secondly, language is constantly evolving. A word that means one thing one day, may mean something else later. "Gay", for example, means light-hearted and happy. However, it now also means effeminate, homosexual,
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And on top of all the other reasons, calling copyright infringement "cop-y-right in-fringe-ment" sucks because it's six syllabels, whereas "pi-ra-cy" is three syllables and "pi-rate" two.
piracy <=> copyright infringement
pirated <=> copyright infringing
pirate <=> infringe on copyright (verb)
pirate <=> copyright infringer (noun)
Now I'm not saying the word has to be "pirate", but t
Blatant Piracy should be stopped (Score:4, Interesting)
These countries can do everything cheaper as seen with off-shored outsourcing and all.
The only edge the US has is innovation.
If these countries can just copy everything and do it dirt cheap, it will harm entities in the US who spend money on innovation - be it pharmaceuticals, music or software.
I think a bit of personal not-for-profit p2p downloading and an exception for life-saving drugs in OK. But, the balatant disregard for copyrights and patents with businesses in these countries openly copying and selling pharmaceuticals, software and music should be stopped.
Re:Blatant Piracy should be stopped (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless the mafiaa is willing to sell movies and CDs for dirt cheap they should expect piracy. let's see, I make about 70K and am willing to spend 25$ on a movie [if it's really good, otherwise I hover around $10]. These people make $7-10K so how about charge them $3 for the same movie. No? Ok, expect piracy.
And frankly if you stake your financial security on nations where the average income is $200 a month, chances are you should rethink your business plan.
Tom
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And from a sociological point of view the studios should take the blame anyways. They're like drug dealers who create such a user/supplier model that is hard to break [for most] then make the prices prohibitive. People aren't going to resort to staring at the walls, they want to watch
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Right. You do realize there's nothing stopping those corporates from registering the patents in the US and doing the research in cheaper countries? The idea that the west has an 'innovation edge' these days is, frankly, mostly a comfort blanket, and strong 'IP' support doesnt protect jobs, it merely increases prices for the local market. Which in turn kills jobs.
Saying those countries should introduce their own monopolies because the US cant compete would be like the
Re:Blatant Piracy should be stopped (Score:4, Insightful)
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And western countries can impose arbitrary economic restrictions, meddle in our internal politics, exploit our work forces and natural resources to maximize your profits. But hey!, we
Brazil leaves the top list of piracy products (Score:2, Interesting)
In the article, it says there was an announcement in the United States last Monday in which it was said that Brazil was removed from the top most part of the list of countries that ignore piracy and violate intellectual property.
Funny thing in the article is to read that they found out that Brazil didn't manufacture the products that were confiscat
Thailand? (Score:5, Insightful)
Those bastards!
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Those bastards! - let's say I am working on my own project in a garage to try and find cure for some weird disease, let's say I am trying to remove the HIV from a human. Let's say I succeed.
I do not see a single reason to allow anyone to copy my work without my permission and without being paid for it. In fact if I did find such a cure I wouldn't even sell it through pharma firms, I would open my own hospital, where I would accept those, who can afford the tr
Israel (Score:3, Insightful)
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Given that the Israeli economy is effectivly kept solvent by the US in the first place. However can you really see the US Government changing their (longstanding) policy to providing Israel with cash (and weapons)?
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That was actually my point; the only country on the list that could be affected by sanctions won't be sanctioned.
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BTW, 2.4 billion military aid comes with a clause that Israel has to purchase for this money
weapon systems from the US alone.
This effectively removes 2.4 billion out of the military budget that might be spent on
Israeli manufacturers with excellent reputation and potential competition for the
US arms industry.
Also 2.4 is small change to maintain the balance of force with 2
Bush Logic (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyright is not a free market issue (Score:2)
Saying to another country that you're not protecting copyrights enough, is a sovereignty issue. It would be equivalent to saying that another country using this or that kind of philosophy in helping the economy is bad and sho
I think they forgot sometihng... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yep, sanctions more than likely will not work (Score:4, Insightful)
What is interesting to me is the fact that the whole world (more or less) thinks your products are so pricey that copyright infringement is a better option.
And this little DRM thingy doesn't seem to be working out too well at the moment. Despite the **AAs opinion that DRM is the only way to protect their business product (which is distribution) the entire world (more or less) is telling them that their product is too expensive.
I'd be willing to be that counts as the world talking with one voice? s
Check is in the mail... (Score:3, Interesting)
If the US govt. says they 'just' put a dozen nations on a piracy blacklist, what it really means is that a dozen nations have been on said list for some time now, allowing the US govt. to harvest statistics, map patterns, etc.
Saying this just went into effect is BS. I'd bet it's been a working list for at least the last year or three. The only reason a 'statement' is released is to keep two or more politically driven hot-button issues in sync in the public mind.
I attest my country (Score:5, Informative)
1) India is big, poor, and in short, 3rd world country. It has problems involving supply of water (clean or not), clean air etc. It surprises many people in India when they learn that other countries don't have regular power failures. I don't think there is absolutely anything anyone can do to stop piracy. If they could, they would stop theft of electricity first. And I am not even sure "Intellectual property" is widely accepted as property.
2) Bollywood et. al. will never add the DRM. Dirt cheap electronics from China and Taiwan are driving the market, and anyone having a TV is buying a DVD player. And unlike most other countries, movies in Bollywood are made for the lowest section of society. No one can take the risk of screwing this market. Just some days ago I bought a DVD and was able to just copy-paste-play it. Region lock is not known to most people.
Those are what I consider the good parts. The bad part is, though, that open source is a far off concept - a competition between free Windows and free Linux. I don't even remember a place where I can buy Windows legally. If you ask the dealer, he will just burn a CD for you, for free or for 15 rs. (.25 ). Unless Linux becomes as big as Windows, good luck having it a "Desktop OS".
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Actually, they already have added it to VCDs. For those of you who don't know what VCD is, just look it up in Wikipedia. Basically it's an old video format that's burnable to CDs and has lower quality video than DVD. Various video forums have questions posted from India asking why they can't copy the VCDs they just bought. It appears that many Indian companies have imposed DRM on VCDs. If they try to play a VCD on a PC, the VCD secretly loads a program on the
Countries on the list make you wonder... (Score:2)
and then
Piracy? (Score:2, Funny)
China and Russia don't seem to be a problem at all?
http://www.icc-ccs.org/extra/display.php [icc-ccs.org]
Problems for the drug companies... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to say I agree with this action to some degree. Namely as it relates to drug companies though. I've been involved people that work in the pharmaceutical business, and getting a drub approved by the FDA is NOT easy. Many never make it to market, and almost all of them require a lot of money to develop in R&D. While making a product is no guarantee of making money, they should be allowed some protection for doing the work. Without a patent on the drug, the minute it hits the market it will be reverse engineered by a different drug company and sold cheaper. Some say that is the way it should be, but I honestly don't agree. The company creating the drug is spending a lot of time and money in R&D, without which we wouldn't get the current drugs we have and rely on. Why should another company get to easily piggy back on their efforts? Where is the motivation to find new cures in that environment?
As to the cost of the drugs, the companies are trying to make money. They're not non-profit organizations. Should they be? That's a different question all together which I won't address here. The rest of the world complains about the price of drugs and refuses to pay the prices the drug companies want to charge, instead deciding not to honor the patents on the drugs if the price doesn't come down. The result? The US has much higher drug prices than most of the rest of the world because we end up paying for the companies R&D costs since the rest of the world won't. Sorry, I can't feel bad about sanctions against countries that refuse to carry the burden of R&D costs and leave the US to carry it all. Do I feel the costs be lower? Definitely. However, I also don't know the R&D cost for a particular drug so whose to say the costs aren't in line with a reasonable time line to recoup R&D costs? I can't say I think having for profit companies develop the drugs helps things.
Given this situation, what's the way to handle it OTHER than patents? How can a company recoup the R&D costs (plus a profit) for a drug at a price level that is fair to all countries? Why shouldn't the countries in the rest of the world be forced to honor the drug companies' patents? It's not like it's a field where the companies can simply say "Pay up or you don't get the cure".
I don't really care much about the copyright portion of this story, but I get irked when I see people ranting against drug companies. They're definitely not perfect, but they are getting screwed by the rest of the world as bad as they screw the people in the US imo.
KhyronWoohoo! More from mr (Score:2)
Spur to innovation (Score:2)
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-m-
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I wonder how long that attitude would last if there was such a thing as truly effective anti-piracy technology?
AFAICT, three options:
1. Everyone starts paying for commercial software
2. A lot of Free (speech/beer) software suddenly gains a whole lot more developers.
3. Some combination of the above.
The BSA touts it as being mostly option 1. A common