US Blocking Costa Rican Sugar Trade To Force IP Laws 441
For the last couple of days news has been trickling in about how the US is trying to ram IP laws down Costa Rica's throat by blocking their access to the US sugar market. Techdirt has a good summary of the various commentaries and a related scoop in the Bahamas where the US is also applying IP pressure. "The first is in Costa Rica, which is included in the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Yet like with other free trade agreements that the US has agreed to elsewhere, this one includes draconian intellectual property law requirements. I still cannot understand why intellectual monopoly protectionism — the exact opposite of 'free trade' — gets included in free trade agreements. At least in Costa Rica, a lot of people started protesting these rules, pointing out that it would be harmful for the economy, for education and for healthcare. So the Costa Rican government has not moved forward with such laws. How has the US responded? It's blocking access to the US market of Costa Rican sugar until Costa Rica approves new copyright laws."
"IP La" (Score:2, Funny)
What's "IP La"? In Central America, wouldn't it be "La IP" instead?
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Look, if we spent all day poking around poorly written summaries and the overall lack of proofreading on this site... then, well... never mind.
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Re:"IP La" (Score:4, Insightful)
They need to stop tagging these as YRO, this has nothing to do with online. There needs to be a new section for copyright, considering how many articles relate to RIAA, MPAA.
OT: What YRO means (Score:5, Informative)
For the thousandth time, it's clearly "Your Rights" Online, not Your "Rights Online".
Or, if you prefer, think of it with a comma - Your Rights, Online.
Every non-Internet story has comments like yours; you'd think after a few hundreds stories like this you'd figure it out ;)
Re:"IP La" (Score:5, Insightful)
Politics is intertwined with everything we do, and in recent years micromanagement by lawfare is well on the way to strangle national and personal freedom.
The tendency to add laws to micromanage all human conduct is certainly of interest to nerds, as we are despised by the ignorant masses who will cheerfully shitcan OUR rights and freedoms for their convenience. In a world suffocated by the law of the rich and powerful, the only "free" people may one day be those who reject it entirely and are willing to pay the price.
I don't much care for the only "free" people being the Timothy McVeighs of the world. Instead of letting it get that far we need to watch for every threat to freedom and expose it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If we really had out shit together, we would vote all these assholes out
Unfortunately they, the whole of DC politicals, control the media that decides what propaganda to spread and how to manipulate it for maximum control of the imbeciles of America
Being realistic, I've given up all hope and realized we're all fucked and going down the crapper at light speed
Our only hope is that maybe someone out there can log in to Joshua and start a game of Global Thermonuclear War. After that we can start over from scra
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As nerds our primary useful output is intellectual property, for many of us our significant consumption is intellectual property, and the focus of our work is intellectual property. It kind of does make sense.
Never Fear!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Never Fear!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
That's like saying (at the family barbeque), "we still have McDonald's".
Re:Never Fear!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Kind of makes you wonder how much of the presentation the lobbyists did included the HFCS and corn production losses to the amount of sugar being imported...
Re:Never Fear!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought it was largely as a concession to the corn farmers in midwest and Great Lakes regions.
Re:Never Fear!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
It's a concession to the corn lobby!
It's a dessert topping *and* a floor wax! (actually, you can probably make both out of corn)
Re:Never Fear!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Hawaii is not a large producer of sugar anymore -all but one grower has shut down (and only one grower of pinneapple remains).
The US is not a large importer of sugar because we grow enough to export and don't use as much per capita as many other areas (EU, India, etc.).
There is no tariff on sugar from Costa Rica for the first 19,225 metric tons (2007 data).
Sugar is not Costa Rica's main export - far from it - less than 2% of the agriculture exports.
Sugar is fungible - if they don't sell to us, they can sell to others.
Corn syrup is cheaper than cane sugar for us to produce. In Brazil, the opposite is true. That's due to environment and cultural and many other reasons.
Re:Never Fear!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
The US is not a large importer of sugar because we grow enough to export
check yor facts. the US is _not_ an exporter of proccessed sugar. not of the sugarcane variety, not of the beet variety
There is no tariff on sugar from Costa Rica for the first 19,225 metric tons
which means theres still a tariff. where's the fabled "free market", then ?
Corn syrup is cheaper than cane sugar for us to produce.
because of high levels of subsidy from the federal government. take those away and imported sugar from brasil, thailand, etc. becomes cheaper, even factoring transport costs.
USA is the hypocritical of all countries when the subject is international trade. when in benefits the US, lets all "free trade", but when it steps on a few lobbists toes, it's heavy tariffs here, restrictions there, sanctions somewhere else.
no wonder developing nations are more and more trading between themselves than with US.
[citation needed] ? here it is [uol.com.br] (in portuguese). to sum it up, china is now brasils larget comercial partner. all asian nations togheter now respond for 30% of our exports. in my 35 years of life i saw the importance of the US as a trade partner drop from more than 40% of our comerce to less than 12%. some of this change can be attributed to the growth of asian nations, but some of them you can put on american atitude too.
oh, and sorry for the harshness of this post. mod me as a troll, but sometimes things have to be said.
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D'oh
To the rest of the world The US IS the villain
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If you're referring to this then +1 funny : http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/01/13/0328221/Organ-Damage-In-Rats-From-Monsanto-GMO-Corn [slashdot.org]
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We still have corn syrup!
There's also sugar production from beets (in California).
Re:Never Fear!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
You joke, but that was my reaction: "The US government is making my sugar more expensive? Oh noes! Maybe now I'll have to pay 205% of the world market price for it instead of the usual 200! And maybe 99% of the crap we eat will be infested with HFCS instead of just 98%. What EVER will we do..."
Re:Never Fear!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
The other day, over a Mexican Coca Cola (real sugar), I said to my companion something along the lines of "drink up, this is the ONLY benefit of Free Trade for the common man".
The US has done everything to make real sugar more expensive, shoving all the HFCS at us. Mexican Coca Cola via NAFTA really is the only tangible benefit I can think of from all this Free Trade multinational corporate nonsense. And if you think about it, it's not really a benefit at all since before the corn lobby captured Congress, we used to mix up Coca Cola with real sugar on THIS side of the border.
So. I stand corrected. Still no real benefit to the current Free Trade regime.
Re:Never Fear!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
The other day, over a Mexican Coca Cola (real sugar), I said to my companion something along the lines of "drink up, this is the ONLY benefit of Free Trade for the common man".
I've seen advertisements for Pepsi "Throwback", which is apparently regular Pepsi, but with real sugar. I almost cried at the realization that we've now come full circle.
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They are also selling Mountain Dew and Dr Pepper that way. I bought a case of each and frankly I find them much better tasting than their corn syrup counterparts. It may be kind of a "no duh" thing to say, but they're not as syrupy tasting.
Re:Never Fear!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Never Fear!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
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The fact that they exist at all is telling.
And OT: what is this bullshit about the Netherlands banning artifical trans-fats? WTF is an artificial trans-fat?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat#Presence_in_food [wikipedia.org]
Some trans-fat is natural, in milk or fat from animals. The rest is artificial created by the process of hydrogenation.
Re:Never Fear!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Ignoring contaminates, HFCS used in the majority of products is a mixture of about 50% glucose and 50% fructose (Both monosacharides). Sucrose (table sugar) is a disacharide made up of one glucose and one fructose bonded. Our body ends up having to break up the sucrose into glucose and fructose in order to process it, so mostly there is no difference between the two.
There are three possible reasons that HFCS is worse than table sugar
- HFCS doesn't require sucrase (the enzyme that breaks sucrose into the two monosacharides). This means that a person could ingest the same amounts of HFCS and sucrose, but get more energy out of the HFCS, because he doesn't have enough sucrase to break all of the sucrose up. I have no idea what the amount of sucrose we can process at once is though.
-HFCS has to go through more chemical processing than table sugar, leading to the potentiality of additional contaminates.
-Finally HFCS is CHEAP. That is the main difference, a food maker can easily put more in to make their product more appealing why leaving the price pretty low.
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http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2007/1969924.htm# [abc.net.au]
Sometimes it's better to get an adult point of view instead of press releases crafted by public relations companie
So that's how it works! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So that's how it works! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:So that's how it works! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So that's how it works! (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like an American divorce.
Re:So that's how it works! (Score:5, Funny)
In Soviet Russia, first the women get you, then the power gets you, then you brew the sugar into cheap vodka, then the vodka gets you.
There. You fixed that for me.
"Free" like I say (Score:4, Insightful)
Cuz increasingly that's all we have left. Especially now that money-printing business has hit the fan.
Re:"Free" like I say (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all because of a nice little corrupt procedure called lobbying. Those with the most money dictating law to the lawmakers over a nice lunch.
Re:"Free" like I say (Score:4, Insightful)
If it's about the money, then it's probably not directly the lobbying, it's the broken campaign finance system. Businesses can't be legally prevented from contributing to campaigns. Despite being a "virtual person" (I think the reason they're allowed to contribute), businesses don't appear to have the same contribution limit as individuals, basically it's getting the best of both sides of the equation.
Re:"Free" like I say (Score:5, Insightful)
You no longer live in a true democracy, corporations and their pet lobby groups have superceded the rights of the citizens of the US in many ways, and the IP Mafiaa can push through things like ACTA and other draconian legislation because they have effective control of the government. Its not that clear cut mind you, I am not preaching paranoia, but corporate interests have a disproportionate influence on the laws that are being enacted, and its not in the interests of the average citizen IMHO.
I'm Canadian, so I don't have the legal option but isn't tossing out your government and replacing it with a better one a legal option down there in the US?
Re:"Free" like I say (Score:4, Insightful)
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Tossing out the government will end up requiring the use of arms. Those with the power will not just walk away. Our country is very polarized and you would find just as many people for as for against the "replacing" of government. You simply won't see "the people" all stand up and tell the current leaders to go.
We're talking about tearing down what we have, not just changing figureheads. All the laws that "we" "don't like" would have to be removed as well.
At the beginning those fighting the powers that
Re:"Free" like I say (Score:5, Informative)
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Cuz increasingly that's all we have left. Especially now that money-printing business has hit the fan.
Yes, with so many of the other things the U.S. has exported having been replaced by goods from China, it really shouldn't be unexpected to see heavy protection of an industry that generates major export income.
It's interesting to note that the Chinese appear to be suppressing Avatar which, while extremely popular, is effectively being ordered off the screens after a short run to make way for a local product
Re:"Free" like I say (Score:5, Funny)
Just copyright money. It should make it artificially scarce again.
Sugar middlemen... (Score:5, Interesting)
Makes me want to setup shop on an island to buy sugar from Costa Rica solely for the purpose of reselling it to the US so Costa Rica can maintain their dignity.
And any other resource for that matter... maybe some type of ship exchange like you do with Propane. Hell, I could corner the market on all sugar imports so they won't be able to tell how much of it is Costa Rica sugar...
Re:Sugar middlemen... (Score:4, Interesting)
You would be doing good and you would get rich. And you would prove that the market always find a way :-)
Nothing new, really. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't think of many countries that don't use tariffs or trade restrictions to promote their own national interests in some way. It may be stupid and benefit no one in the end, but it's still within a nation's rights to take their ball and go home.
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LOL @ U
WTO membership limits US trade freedom in the same way speed limits "limit" the speed of the richest most powerful citizen in a small town.
Even if they get caught speeding, worst case is they just pay the fine and speed away...
Re:Nothing new, really. (Score:5, Insightful)
Have to agree. If you think a country is in violation of the WTO obligations then you take your case to the WTO, not act unilaterally. Why any country would bother signing any agreement with the US any more is way beyond me. They never hold up their end of any agreement any more. Every day I dread ACTA more and more and more.
Re:hua... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, Microsoft isn't that bad...
Not Again (Score:2)
Seeing as how well it worked for Cuba, this could be a win-win!
Legality (Score:2, Insightful)
Level playing field (Score:5, Insightful)
US produces IP and wants to protect it.
Sugar being a tangible item is what Costa Rica produces.
You want to trade with the US you should play by US rules. The US want to trade with Costa Rica we play by Costa Rican rules, thus the trade agreement.
I see nothing wrong here.
Why these trade rules aren't being used to enforce environmental agreements and not IP ones is somewhat beyond me.
Re:Level playing field (Score:5, Informative)
Because the US doesn't want to upgrade to Costa Rican environmental standards.
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Re:Level playing field (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Level playing field (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean you would be willing to give costa ricans 200 year patentability in the US if their law grants patents for 200 years? I guess that would be quite profitable for Costa Rica, but for some reason you seem to believe the terms are for the US to decide. Which is absolute rubbish.
There is no natural God-given right for developed countries to first import slaves from developing countries, then make them slaves in their own countries making running shoes, and then when they finally start to get on their own feet, tell them they cannot make and give aids and malaria drugs to their own citizens because "we invented them first". It's a very modern idea that you can dictate to another government that they cannot medicate their own citizens with whatever means they have domestically available. And it's also idiotic.
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Yeah, I suppose if you look at it that way, there's nothing wrong with it. Just like there's nothing wrong with, say, schoolyard bullying - if you don't want to be bullied, just suck up to the bully and play by his rules, so what's the problem?
The problem, of course, is that this sort of behavior, while perfectly understandable if you consider states (and people) to be entirely sociopathic egoists, driven only by the desire to get the biggest slice of cake for themselves at the expense of everyone else, sim
And so (Score:5, Funny)
That government of the corporations
By the corporations
For the corporations
Shall not perish from the Earth
Color me underwhelmed. (Score:5, Informative)
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what is keeping China from importing Costa Rican sugar and re-branding it as Chinese sugar?
Because transporting it across the Pacific, twice, eliminates any price advantage?
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No, its been that way since the dawn of recorded time. You know why? Because thats the way it works, the big guy sets the rules. This is nothing new. This is nothing unique to America. It will continue long after America is no longer of any importance at all.
Just figuring this out now ... did you bother to go to your high school history class?
Hello Pot? I think you've met kettle... (Score:4, Insightful)
for NO GAIN OF OUR OWN (this includes both Iraq (the supposed "bad war") and Afghanistan (the supposed "good war" that people are now having second thoughts about). Your cluelessness on what constitutes a "good country" and a "bad country" is truly epic.
Germany and Japan were only built up as counterweights to the influence of Russia and China. South Korea was a counterweight to China. Vietnam, since the intelligence community at the time was so hilariously inept, was also a counterweight to the threat of communist China. (The Vietnamese have been fighting the Chinese for centuries). Iraq and Afghanistan are strategically important, due to their geography and their natural resources. If Iraq didn't have oil, we wouldn't care what Saddam was doing. And if Saddam had continued to play by the rules, we would have let him continue to murder and kill for decades more. This is why we sit and watch Rwanda and Darfur with detached interest.
This is beyond the fact that the "nation" of Iraq as it is today is a figment of British imagination, purposefully drawn to create a state that is both rich in natural resources and completely divided internally, so it will be dependent on foreign powers. Just as it is beyond the fact that Saudi Arabia has a human rights record just as bad as Iran, it's an Islamic monarchy that doesn't allow non-Muslims to testify in court, or anyone to even pretend to vote, but it receives no criticism because it is - for now - a faithful lapdog.
I doubt you know that we invaded and occupied Haiti, Nicaragua, the Philippines, with tens of thousands of Marines. Or that we sponsored murderous thugs throughout Central and South America, if those thugs provided profit opportunities for American businesses. This is how it begins - a trade war. If it continues, watch the men in charge unleash the media on the "leftist" government in Costa Rica.
Your statement also ignored the fact that these people have a right to choose their own destiny, since they are sovereign nations. Unless you'd like someone to invade America and choose our political system for us, I think you should reconsider your position and it's consequences.
Your understanding of history is truly pathetic. If it wasn't, however, it would be tough to convince me you were an American. I hope for your sake you never receive what you have wished upon others.
Re:Color me underwhelmed. (Score:5, Informative)
Quite a bit longer than 150 years, and usually we push them around by military means as much as economic. Hence our repeated invasions of most of the countries in Latin America, as well as not infrequent support of coup attempts.
As Maj Gen Smedley Butler put it back in the 1930's, when this sort of thing was in full swing:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class thug for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
It's history like that, by the way, that makes accusations that the US supported the coup against Hugo Chavez carry significant weight (whether true or not).
Re:Color me underwhelmed. (Score:5, Insightful)
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They hate our freedom!!
Just because they were paranoid... (Score:5, Insightful)
... doesn't mean they were wrong.
Congratulations, the West was so focused on preventing communist totalitarians from taking over the world we've let capitalists move in and fill the niche.
The One World Government is here. But it's not a communist state, it's a kleptocracy.
(Hey, but at least we have Avatar and deep fried butter to distract us.)
Free trade (Score:5, Interesting)
You misunderstand the meaning of free trade/the free market. It's free as in free for the more advanced economies, but not for the rest. Historically, countries like Europe and America (and others) have strengthened their economies by violating free market principles, and enforcing them on others.
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You're talking about hypothetical trade, whereas you should be looking at reality. I can see the possible benefits of the free market, except trade as it stands has not become more free, and all have not benefited.
One historical example: the industrial revolution was built upon cheap cotton, which came from the US. The "vast, fertile land" was cleared by wiping out indigenous inhabitants, and it was not the market that kept cotton cheap, but primarily slavery. And other c
Maybe the government should have (Score:2, Interesting)
actually read and thought about the damn agreement before signing it.
Free trade not free property (Score:3, Informative)
Intellectual property laws being uniform across a free trade so is REQUIRED for free trade of intellectual property and clearly not 'the exact opposite of free trade.' If laws differed between member nations then one nation would be able to use intellectual property to manufacture their goods which was prohibited by other members thus creating an unfair advantage. This would be most dramatic if the intellectual property was produced in one nation under its laws then used without license by another nation to effectively eliminate the benefits of the intellectual property protects. These protections are for the creators not for the nations (thus not protectionist in the traditional sense). Free trade is to stop nations from creating safe havens for their producers by erecting unfair barriers to trade not to allow anyone to take whatever IP they want and use it as they see fit.
Re:Free trade not free property (Score:5, Insightful)
Free trade is to stop nations from creating safe havens for their producers by erecting unfair barriers to trade not to allow anyone to take whatever IP they want and use it as they see fit.
Free trade is where I say 'hey, I've got this widget, you want to buy it?' and you say 'sure, here's $10' and we exchange cash for widget, without the government interfering at any point.
You don't need huge treaties for free trade, you just need governments to get out of the way.
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Free trade is where I say 'hey, I've got this widget, you want to buy it?' and you say 'sure, here's $10' and we exchange cash for widget, without the government interfering at any point.
You don't need huge treaties for free trade, you just need governments to get out of the way.
Sounds nice but is completely incorrect. A huge percentage of the present US economy is based on intellectual property: computer software, television shows, movies, music, the designs of complex things (computer chips, etc.).
The only way to generate money from IP is to use governments to create and enforce laws. Otherwise, people will just make free copies of things.
Now, note that if you want to say that this is OK, that is fine, but it's a completely different argument. You would be destroying the pres
Re:Free trade not free property (Score:5, Insightful)
Meaning: before IP was invented, just a few hundred years ago, writers made no money. Which is, of course, absurd. IP is a scam, as much as religions or the war on drug.
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I agree that IP is a scam.
However, the concept that your example is talking about is Copyright, which is just one kind of IP. I don't think the Costa Rican government (or any other government, for that matter) would have a problem with that. The problem here is really about the other kind - the Patents. Many governments across the world are unwilling or reluctant to extend US patent laws into their own countries, for atleast three reasons. Firstly, patents are a stupid concept. They feel meaningful to many
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You're confusing the state of IP during medieval times (roughly 900-1300) with that during the Renaissance (1300-1500). Heck, even the ancient Greeks and Romans had prolific writers. But don't let ignorance get in the way of your point.
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What about when a company in country A spends 5 or 6 billion dollars developing something, then country B ignores the investment and costs involved and just lets anyone who wants to copy it with no restriction?
What do you think happens when next time around the company says 'fuck it, the rest of the world will just copy what we did and we'll never make back what we put into developing it' and then they just stop making new things. Now everyone suffers, because of 'free trade' as you put it.
Contrary the th
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The rub is tha
Re:Free trade not free property (Score:4, Interesting)
If laws differed between member nations then one nation would be able to use intellectual property to manufacture their goods which was prohibited by other members thus creating an unfair advantage.
That's only unfair if the other nations' laws are themselves fair. And of course, what's fair can vary quite a lot depending on one's circumstances. You're essentially suggesting the equivalent of a flat tax, where everyone is taxed the same amount in currency, regardless of ability to pay or the ratio of one's overall income or wealth to the amount of the tax. It's generally accepted that progressive taxes are more fair, where the amount you pay is proportional to the amount you have and can afford. Why shouldn't we try a similar model here? Given that copyright laws govern importation already, which avoids the problem of arbitrage, what's so bad about this? Further, shouldn't each nation strive to enact laws that best serve its own people? I'd be happy to have Costa Rica decide for itself what sorts of copyright laws would best serve Costa Ricans, so long as the US was similarly free of pernicious influences that result in a law that isn't as good for its people as possible, whether those influences are from without or within.
Re:Free trade not free property (Score:4, Insightful)
And the sad thing is.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And the sad thing is that if Costa Rica tells us to go fsck ourselves, while it will hurt Costa Rica's economy, all it will do here is help sell even more High Fructose Corn Syrup and help the corn lobby here.
Boycott Sugar (Score:2)
Stop using it.
When the sugar companies start bitching, the congress critters will whine at obamanator to stop the embargo.
Ok US complainers (Score:4, Interesting)
How many of you know, specifically, your elected representatives' views on international trade?
And how many of you plan to claim you did, but really didn't,and had to look it up when I called you on it?
Re:Ok US complainers (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course nobody did, and it's not your fault. But that doesn't mean you can stand rested with your arms crossed now. Democracy is about breathing in the necks of the politicians EVERY SINGLE DAY, cause the day you don't do it, things like these happen.
US leader producer of Poor people around the world (Score:2, Interesting)
Umm, so? (Score:2)
So, on /. we complain about China because they ignore copyright and patent law on everything, but the it's "let poor Costa Rica be!" when they violate the terms of their treaty and the US doesn't just roll over and ignore it?
I would be more sympathetic if they refused the treaty, and were then being pressured to accept it "or else". But here, they're just opting to comply with the parts of the treaty they like, and completely ignore the parts they don't. I fail to see how this could possibly be spun as a
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Ever been outside the us ? (Score:2)
IP Laws (Score:2, Insightful)
The Government of the United States of America is a whore to corporate interests.
Freedom is simple, CAFTA is not (Score:5, Insightful)
Article I, Section 9. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state. No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another: nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one state, be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties in another.
That's it. In contrast CAFTA is 3700 pages long. NAFTA is 2000 pages long. These agreements do not give freedom, they take it away.
Why is Sugar different than IP? (Score:2)
ip law is defunct (Score:5, Interesting)
its a direct, unavoidable consequence of the rise of the internet
ip laws only make sense when they are a gentleman's agreement among a handful of publishers. they are completely unenforceable when every teenager in his basement is a publisher to anyone else at zero cost, for anything you want
the wise thing for costa rica to do is simply agree to whatever the usa demands ip law wise. and then its business as usual. which is: everything is available with no ip restrictions to anyone remotely familiar with a computer console
enforcement is impossible, even for the usa within its own borders, so who fucking cares what the lawyers and bureaucrats and corporations say? they've already been routed around
i'm not saying you shouldn't get upset at the arrogance and the audacity of the american demands, i'm saying a bully making demands without any actual ability to follow through on his threats is nothing you have to pay any respect to
you simply pay the asshole lip service, put a big smile on your face, say "yes" to whatever the asshole wants, and then its business as usual, which is: ip laws mean nothing. all of the posturing and threats and demands mean nothing. there's NO ENFORCEMENT POSSIBLE
let all the corporate lawyers, midlevel bureaucrats amd other pointless yammering meat popsicles create all the ip laws and agreements they want
WHO FUCKING CARES. they can't enforce any of it. its the internet age. this is not vhs copy machines in a warehouse or cd duplicators in the closet. you can't shut down the internet
people: stop getting upset at these retards trying to enforce laws from a previous technological era and just igore them and their petty demands without any muscle behind them. they can't stop technological change. they are defunct, they just don't know it
Why Sugar you said? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is the US using sugar instead of a bigger product for Costa Rica, like coffee or bananas?
I'll tell you why, there's a controlling elite in Costa Rica that has managed the country for a few years already, and the head of this elite is the current President and his brother, Oscar and Rodrigo Arias, which in turn own the biggest sugar cane fields in the country. So the attack is directly to their pockets and so they move all their influence to enforce the IP law, that includes stupid rules as that every restaurant or public place will have to pay royalty to the RIAA equivalent in our country if they play the radio to keep their customers entertained!
The worst case is that the oposition in our country is not well organized nor has the intellectual strength to fight this kind of laws, plus the elite has majority in congress, so the IP laws have some resistance, but they have not been approved because congress is to darn slow to do anything, so we'll get them eventually.
OLD NEWS DAY (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly the same thing was done to Australia a couple of years ago, we are now bound by American Copyright laws in return for some not-100%-royally-screwing-australia "free trade" agreements.
The irony of the thing is that America was founded on "no taxation without representation" and now they want to shove their laws down my throat but without *also* giving me the rights/priviledges of "being an american".
Welcome to the modern methods of empire-building.
Call Me A Language loonie (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not certain whether I should be called a language loonie, a logic loonie or a political radical but here goes my rant: Free trade means free of all laws, all rules, all taxes, all regulations. The blithering about free markets and capitalism is a right wing conspiracy in and of itself. No nation, not even a tribe of primitives, has ever tried free trade for even one solitary moment. The notion of free trade compares to pregnancy. One absolutely is or is not pregnant. There are no stages or shades of grey.
By letting people absorb the false facts about free trade it becomes easy to further manipulate their lives. Obviously it follows as the night the day that if free trade has never existed then nothing really is known about free trade at all. It is false theoretical dribble designed to enslave under educated populations.
I cringe in horror at the supposedly logical, supposedly educated types who spout off about free trade.
Are these two issues related? (Score:3, Informative)
While Michael Geist states that they are [michaelgeist.ca] and that the US is deliberately blocking exports
a technollama article [technollama.co.uk] that Geist cited does not seem to have the same opinion. They were not able to confirm a connection between the issues and in fact found information to the contrary.
For reference, the ticotimes.net article [ticotimes.net] simply stated
but as the technollama article indicates, no one else has said this and it could not be confirmed.
Re: (Score:2)
High Fructose Corn Chocolate?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
When they STILL our shit, what do they make? ;)
I know stills are used to produce alcohol and perfume, but our shit sure is not perfume.
Maybe they use it to make our beer? Foreigners claim it tastes like ----.
Ahhh, If we can't laugh at ourselves, what can we laugh at.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There, fixed that for you.