10 Years Later: Antigua May Finally (Really) Set Up Official 'Pirate' Site To Get Back What US Owes In Sanctions
from the watch-this-space dept
Well here's a story that's more than a decade in the making. Way back in 2003, we first wrote about Antigua filing for sanctions against the US for its ban on online gambling. Antigua argued (with fairly strong support) that this violated a trade agreement between the US and Antigua, by blocking a form of free trade. The case was at the WTO for years, bouncing around. In 2004, the WTO ruled against the US, which the US promptly ignored. In 2005, the WTO again ruled in favor of Antigua on the issue, and the US (stunningly) responded by pretending that it had won, when it most clearly had not. Following that, the US pretended that it could just unilaterally change its free trade agreement to carve out gambling. Not surprisingly, Antigua (and the WTO) found that to be problematic.It goes without saying that the US is big and powerful and Antigua... is not. So, as it became clear that the US intended to ignore any WTO ruling, people began to wonder if there was any remedy for Antigua over this issue. Normally, the WTO could do something with trade sanctions against the US and in favor of Antigua, but given how much Antigua relies on US trade, that would likely hurt Antigua a lot more than the US. Somewhere in the midst of this -- around 2006 -- someone somewhere floated the idea that one way that Antigua could be made whole would be to allow it to ignore US copyright laws, allowing it to "sell" copyrighted content on the cheap, without paying any royalties. That idea took on a life of its own and Antigua began pushing the idea itself around 2007. The world community started to side with Antigua over this, recognizing that the US was being completely unfair here... and the US did what the US does, and bought off a bunch of big countries to get them to shut up and stop supporting Antigua.
In late 2007, the WTO finally said that this plan of retaliatory copyright infringement could go forward in Antigua, but limited to just $21 million worth of infringement. Even so, the US immediately warned Antigua not to even think about it, or it would retaliate. There were some negotiations between the two countries that went nowhere and then... a lot of nothing. We've barely touched on the story since 2008 when Antigua once again threatened to (no, really this time!) launch a copyright infringing store with "permission" from the WTO. But, that didn't happen.
However, reports are now coming out that Antigua finally has plans in place to launch just such a store. Of course, we'll believe it when we see it, considering the decade-long posturing over this issue. Oh yeah, and, once again, the US is warning Antigua not to move forward, claiming that Antigua is acting in "bad faith" and launching the store might "serve to postpone the final resolution of this matter." Considering that the US lost at the WTO nearly a decade ago, and still hasn't "resolved" the matter, that's a fairly ridiculous claim. And, of course, the US is threatening to "retaliate" if Antigua goes forward:
"In these circumstances, Antigua has no justification for taking any retaliatory actions against the United States. Moreover, if Antigua actually proceeds with a plan for its government to authorize the theft of intellectual property, it would only serve to hurt Antigua’s own interests. Government-authorized piracy would undermine chances for a settlement that would provide real benefits to Antigua. It also would serve as a major impediment to foreign investment in the Antiguan economy, particularly in high-tech industries."So, the short version from the US's point of view is that it's fine to ignore its own trade agreements that wrecked a significant part of Antigua's economy -- but as soon as Antigua fights back and wins, it's not allowed to make use of WTO-approved remedies after years and years of the US refusing to fix its abuses. And somehow when it finally (years and years later) moves forward with this other plan... the US argues that it would harm its international obligations? The hubris from the US is (once again) incredible, if not particularly surprising.
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Filed Under: antigua, copyright, online gambling, piracy, trade dispute, us, wto
Reader Comments
The First Word
“For the Children to Defeat Terrorist
Antigua is doing it all wrong. All they have to do is explain how online gabling is designed to protect US children from big bad terrorist who do bad sex things while creating cyber pearl harbors and super secret cyber World War 3 which would destroy everything from my Microwave oven to the entire power grid of the nation. Then politicians would jump to allow gabling, after all. If not for the country, they have to morally do it for the children.Subscribe: RSS
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It is just USA being overly aggressive in trade-relations which is nothing new. I think USA is more likely to start an embargo and take the worldwide condemnation, but then again. Talk is cheap, actions are not.
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When will they get sick of listening to themselves. There can be no "theft" of intellectual "property". End of.
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For the Children to Defeat Terrorist
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Re: For the Children to Defeat Terrorist
It's not just a typo - it appears twice.
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lol
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Re: Re: For the Children to Defeat Terrorist
Yes, you have to what is necessary to circumvent the ban. Even the word is censored in the U.S.
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Re: For the Children to Defeat Terrorist
Antigua's selling of bit patterns would protect us from piracy.
And guns and evil video games.
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Re: For the Children to Defeat Terrorist
Have a first word!
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Re: For the Children to Defeat Terrorist
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$21m
So that's up to 9000 music tracks then according to the 8th circuit court?
That's Hasil Adkins discography covered then.
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Re: $21m
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Re: $21m
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You go, Antigua.
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The sin of Hubris is inevitably and inexorably followed by Nemesis
Do EET!!!
MOAR POWAR!
BOHICA MPAA/RIAA!
██ 39%
███ 49%
████ 76%
█████ 89%
██████ 100%
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'Government-authorized piracy would undermine chances for a settlement that would provide real benefits to Antigua.'
As though the US was just taking it's sweet time getting the reparations in order to repay Antigua for screwing them over in the first place, and the whole 'Forget the WTO, we totally won that case' was just a misunderstanding.
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The Corleone Effect
At $21M, it might not even be worth the cost of retaliation.
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Re: The Corleone Effect
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copyright laws
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copyright laws
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Let places like The Pirate Bay set up there.How about Non-Logging VPN's.
Fuck My US Government and Fuck the MAFIAA !
Millions of people will give you a ton of Business while you get to stick two fingers in the Air.
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Ah me
If something were in Antigua that was incredibly important to the U.S., who is going to stop us? I'm not saying that out of pride, though I am not ashamed of the fact that we have a powerful military. What I am simply saying is, where is the rest of the world's commitment to security? Where's YOUR military? Where are you in the Middle East? Where are you in Africa?
Don't give me this moral superiority nonsense. If you can do it better than the US, you absolutely should. If you're going to just sit there complaining about us while we provide free enforcement for any and all international policies the "West" in general deems beneficial, then cry me a river when things go to hell, but don't ask me to believe those tears are sincere.
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Has the US government ever 'resorted' to anything else?
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They don't. So the casinos only had to buy a few.
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Yes, the government wants its share of the money. If the can't get a share they ban it so that the money goes to where they get a share. Exceptions are made for the 1%.
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The whole planetary economy is still in a tissy over their last fiasco. And STILL hardly anyone cares. People are out there honest to god trying to blame poor people who barely understand the system for borrowing too much so they can live in a house....
Anyhow, since all your money is debt anyhow, it becomes an issue.
Short answer - yes. Yes it does.
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But let's ignore all of that because online gambling. ...Yeah.
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I bet you're familiar with Iceland's approach to the banking issue right? So cool.
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Be transparent...
If they do this, they should put a huge countdown (starting at $21,000,000) on their front page that decreases as they sell files. As soon as it reaches zero, they stop taking orders.
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Though realistically if the US govt and it's cronies want to push the stupidity of trying to prosecute their own citizens for breaches of some type of law that the USA might have on it's books after the USA itself has breached a law that initiated this scenario then Antigua not selling to 5% of the worlds population wouldn't really be much of a concern would it, and I'm sure the US people knowing they are paying exorbitant prices for works that the rest of the world isn't would sit extremely well with them.. *snort*
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And yep, notices it seems can be done by anyone with more money than ethics.
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Re: Be transparent...
Though since the govt of any jurisdiction can set what % can go to copyright holders via there collection agencies this per work price could be anywhere from 5% of the market value (what market though.. definitely not the US one) to umm some figure that is nearer to 0.001% of $0.01 per work.
See Antigua might be smart enough to understand that just as the $21mill was an arbitrary figure plucked out of the sky, they can set arbitrary retail prices and arbitrary collection of copyright prices.
I for one will welcome something like say $5 - $20US per month to download anything I wish.
Might take a while to count down.
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OK Mr. Dodd
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This statement is more proof that still the American Government has this strange notion that only they have some type of high-tech industry and other countries are just dumb foreigners.
Antigua might find an influx of HT Industries from China, India, & Brazil to name just a few . Or even from private companies from across the world who are basically pissed off at the USA.. I know at least a dozen personally who could be persuaded to start investing in Antigua since that is probably where most people will now go for their Media purchases.
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No one's going to work their way to freedom
People do not understand that the dollar remains the current default international currency. It has a value independent of its value here in America that is based on an amalgam of our percieved strength in business, technology, energy, and most importantly, our ability to defend our interests abroad.
The value of modern money is entirely - quite literally entirely - a matter of perception. Being able to physically prevent people from doing things that mess with the perception of America as powerful and worthy of being obeyed is key to the current economic success of this nation.
Which is pathetic in my view, but it DOES work, no matter what I may think of the moral or ethical underpinnings.
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Re: No one's going to work their way to freedom
Your market might of used to of been big and diverse when you were, other than Europe, the only real place to sell anything to. And yes the ability to produce a huge amount of products cheaply to allow high consumer turnover with many competitors (choice) is the reason why your economy excelled and bypassed the UK in the 20th Century.
That market though is basically nothing compared to the emerging markets of the rest of the world. If you have been here for a while you would of noticed something I say a lot (and I sound to myself like a broken record) but it needs repeating. The USA is only 5% of the worlds population. Looking at the percentage of the NEW developing world (compared to the old 'first world') your market percentage is around 15% this means there are 85% of other places where companies can produce, sell, and constantly resell to a growing (I mean really growing) market and economy. You have barely any manufacturing or primary industries (mining, oil, coal) anymore. Your whole economy is now basically based on services and technology but the problem is you are refusing to allow old technologies to use new technology in innovative ways to what your internal and external markets want and require.
The perception of the USA being the worthy and powerful nation is now becoming obsolete since every country, and most of the informed population knows and sees this as bully tactics and is basically pushing back. The perception of the USA physically able to stop others from doing things they want is just hot air nowadays unless the USA want to initiate M.A.D and you already are overstretched (more than your populace realise) in committing to a few major military theatres.
From the outside looking in its scary to see what is currently happening within the USA to its economy, its average citizen's lack of health and education, individual freedom (you might have a Bill of Rights, that if not totally it is very close to being moot), inventiveness (it's being stamped out by your laws against yourselves on patents, national security, and other FUD), the list goes on.
America is now becoming a walled garden more so than during the 1930's when you had at least your manufacturing and industry to fall back on. The world has changed, the threat of communism (which wasn't really a threat in first place) has disappeared, to be instead replaced by the threat of invisible ideas that America is pushing.
If it doesn't change soon it will be worse for not just the USA but the whole planet, and the human species cannot allow one nation to control the rest of the planet. Something will give, and I somehow do not think it will go the USA's way and will result in a lot of bloodshed before it sorts itself out. *sigh*
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Re: Re: No one's going to work their way to freedom
I am not impressed though with the idea of emerging markets. Continually what we see is those markets being supressed in no small part by their own governments. We export services and import things. In other words, we get a lot of stuff for nothing. This is because of the military.
For this reason I think you are right about the very real possibility of collapse and bloodshed, but it seems to me this could be avoided if several of the largest manufacturing nations (China being of course at the top of that list) were to open their markets, not to foreigners, but to their own people.
Many of these nations are destroying the initiative of their own people in far more egregious ways that we do here in the States, and yet so few seem to recognize it. This is due in no small part by the interference of the US with the sociopolitical development there. We pay a lot of money to people who operate oppressive business models that benefit us more than the citizens of the nations doing the production.
Until the lack of freedom in these developing nations is addressed, I think you will be frustrated in your attempts to change the status quo internationally. America is less the enemy than the leaders within this nations themselves.
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The US has let companies export all the high tech industries to foreign countries, so who is the dumb one.
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That comes to 9 downloads of an old Metallica album, 3 downloads of Skyfall, and 1 Harry Potter ebook.
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Funny Accounting
Using a little bit of hollywood accounting they would have made back only their 21 million, while sticking it to the MAFIAA wonderfully hard at the same time.
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Re: Funny Accounting
I wonder if the $21m is for actual sales, or for profits? It it's for profit, they could use Hollywood accounting to keep selling stuff forever.
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Re: Funny Accounting
Under Hollywood Accounting rules, Antigua would need to set up a store that sells Imaginary Property (IP). Then they would need to set up several other organizations that bill the store various "fees". Until the store eventually turns a profit, that $21 Million that Antigua is owed cannot be repaid. I hope those "fees" won't get too high. I mean, it could take Billions of dollars in sales in order to eventually turn $21 Million in profit. Heck, the Star Wars movies from the 1970's still are not profitable!. So poor Antigua may never get the $21 Million that the WTO says it is owed.
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Sadly, I think it's the public who will once again pay the price for this.
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Hehe
But thanks for sharing your sentiments.
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news flash
tv shows for .25 cents
applications for .25 cents
games for a .05 cents
or subscribe for a monthly 50 cents and take all you want.
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be funny if
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I'm stealing songs by listening to the radio right now and nobody is paying me anything either.
Hold on - I'm going to use my voice to make and distribute an unauthorized copy. Maybe that will work.
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Last paragraph
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But - aAntigua already has a business that does exactly this -
It sells a complete range of easy to use DRM breaking products for movies and games.
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Sheesh, they only get a half a song worth of downloading anyway, just let em do it.
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I Wish
If nothing else at all were to come out of the copyleft movement, I would say placing IP back, squarely, in the domain of being a government granted privilege and not anything remotely related to "theft" would be enough.
Talk about bad faith....
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/miscarriage-murder-roevwade-per sonhood
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Don't forget Hollywood Accounting fees
But first the overhead of those sales must be recouped before any profit can be declared that repays that $21 Million.
Given Hollywood Accounting rules, which the US has no problems with, Antigua would probably need to sell at least several Beeelions of dollars (pinky to mouth) worth of bit patterns before it generates a $21 Million profit to satisfy the WTO approved sanctions from the US.
Antigua would need to set up several subsidiaries. Those would bill various "fees" to the store which sells the IP (imaginary property).
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No Taxes
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Most artists see nothing at all from their works, it goes direct into executives pockets
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Sounds like a typical bully to me. Always beating or extorting lunch money out of the smaller kids but whining about how unfair people are being when the teacher is looking.
Boo-hoo, US. I feel for you. Boo-hoo.
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Team Sambo: Sponsored by the RIAA & MPAA - Pfft let's just bomb Antigua.
We don't want no war! War is not my voice.
Team Sambo: Sponsored by the RIAA & MPAA - Hey! Look it's OJ Simpson in molesting a chipmunk.
What! No way!
WTFBOOOOM!
Da fuck! This is an outrage.
Faux News - Antigua is new suspected hideout of Saddams ghost.
BOMB THEM SOME MORE
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U.S. Government was waiting on climate change to solve the problem
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Re: U.S. Government was waiting on climate change to solve the problem
Embarrassing....
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Government-authorized piracy
A whiter shade of black
Wet sun
Adrenaline-fueled sleep
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Go Antigua
It's not just rulings about shady gambling schemes that the US ignores.
The US destroyed a billion dollar lumber industry in Canada by allowing price fixing. The WTO smacked it down, and the US ignored that ruling too. Canada bent over and took it.
The WTO has teeth for every country except the USA. The US ignoring the WTO is business as usual. Kudos for Antigua for offering real consequences to US bad behaviour.
Imagine if Canada ignored US Copyright equivalent to the value of our former lumber industry. I think the US *might* pay attention to that.
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Re: Go Antigua
The WTO is a US house organ because the entire international community relies on the USA to enforce any and all international agreements.
You have no one to blame ultimately but yourselves.
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Re: Re: Go Antigua
What boogeyman is actually out there. And don't start the terrorism bullshit, modern terrorism has been around for over 50yrs before America discovered it at home. Yes 9/11 was a tragedy, but it pales in comparison to what the rest of the world has suffered from terrorism and learnt to handle before the USA came along swaggering with an overstuffed ego saying "We have a cunning plan to fix it -we'll declare war on it" (Without saying it's really a reason to have a new 'red under the bed' fear to control the populace and also fix the military-industrial economy that the USA was based on.
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Re: Re: Re: Go Antigua
The simple fact is that Europe benefits from the U.S.'s global interference with the economies and political doings of other nations, all while sitting smugly on the sidelines bragging about their moral superiority.
Our military industrial complex started largely due to a couple of World Wars you might be familiar with, both of which had significant ties with international finance as well.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Go Antigua
you don't know me You have barely been on TD a blink compared to others that do know me, so don't presume that I do not understand about macro nor micro economics, International marketing, Global socio-politic affairs, nor anything else that you pull out of the air.
I also think you have somehow assumed I'm European (I'm not) nor am I self righteous about either my own country or myself, though it seems one of us is.
As for the militaristic dominance America thinks it has, it is nowadays a pale shadow of its former domination and strength. If you cannot see that, maybe you should try to step outside your parochial mindset and see the bigger picture. That's what I have always tried to do.
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That plus its currently 6:55am on a Sunday, been up all night writing affidavits on analysis of evidence for prosecutors and I'm sort of not in a good frame of mind. Especially after being annoyed trying to read that huge 340+ thread on "Copyright Is Becoming Guilt By Accusation" or as I think it should be called "Why some law student (looking at you AJ) need to go back to law school or consider another line of work"
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I have no doubt our military dominance is not what it was in the 80's, but show me the military that holds a candle to it? We're still all over the world doing things for the benefit of an international finance regime that benefits Europe as much as anyone else.
To make a long story short, there is a lot of accusation of America flying around from corners that are not any better off from a moral or ethical standpoint than we are.
I'm not terribly put off by your tone, I just do not see anything but a certain sense of personal authority backing what you say. I don't even really think I am saying anything all that far out of the mainstream - merely pointing out that America is not, all by itself, the big bad boobeyman people are making us out to be, and that if people don't like us throwing our weight around they can maybe spend some money on international military activities themselves.
Having us carry that weight all the time, then complaining about the U.S. being especially backwards and corrupt when it works in our favor, is unconvincing rhetoric to me.
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That sounds stupid enough to be a GOP policy statement.
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