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Antigua could hit U.S. with copyright-free downloads
21–30 of 41 posts
Re: Antigua could hit U.S. with copyright-free downloads
#22It's interesting to see Antigua's reaction to America ignoring the WTO. I think America is on shaky ground here, as many countries are getting sick of America overstepping their boundaries. In theory, every country aligned with the WTO should back Antigua on this. In reality, America will threaten trade sanctions against them too, so it will be a question of who has big enough balls to stand up to the world's bully.…
What boundaries exactly got overstepped? It's a legal collision. US law says no online gambling. Antigua law says "Gambling is great, we welcome US consumers!". US tries to enforce its law via sanctions (I think). WTO law says you can't do that and awards Antigua $21M US in "equivalent sanctions" or somesuch (i.e. it's not a cash award).
Yawn. I mean, I think the US law here is dumb, but it's the law. I think the enforcement was clumsy, and it was rebuked. But this sort of nonsense happens all the time in international law. Must every trade dispute involving the US become some kind of para-nationalist rant against the "world's bully?". Can't it just be a dumb law like the literally thousands of other dumb laws?
Re: Antigua could hit U.S. with copyright-free downloads
#23The article is very sensationalist. WTO penalties are meant to be a proportional penalty, not some sort of carte-blanche. The sensationalist aspect here is the idea that Antigua might set a far below-market price on intellectual property items. Ah, we'll charge $0.000000000000000000000000000001 per song/movie! Functionally unlimited songs and movies for $1! They'll have to negotiate since we now have a legal way for…
The sensationalist aspect here is the idea that Antigua might set a far below-market price on intellectual property items What's the price of something that has no incremental cost? We've been trained to think it's ~ $15, but there's no real basis for that.
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Re: Antigua could hit U.S. with copyright-free downloads
#24Here's yesterday's discussion of a different article on the same move, fwiw: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112748
Re: Antigua could hit U.S. with copyright-free downloads
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
The sensationalist aspect here is the idea that Antigua might set a far below-market price on intellectual property items What's the price of something that has no incremental cost? We've been trained to think it's ~ $15, but there's no real basis for that.
>What's the price of something that has no incremental cost? Whatever the market is willing to pay.
Absent a government-granted temporary monopoly, the market would be willing to pay very little. So it ends up a bit circular when debating government IP policies.
Re: Antigua could hit U.S. with copyright-free downloads
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are not pirating movies, see. This would be a legal site where you are paying a lot less...
I guess it depends what you mean by "pirating." If you mean some thing based on morality or justice, the copyright holder is not getting their promised share of the revenue, so (regardless of how much you actually care about that) the site is in the same boat as The Pirate Bay there. If you mean "legal" then the immediate question becomes, legal where? Rojodirecta was "legal" too, remember? Didn't stop the U.S. from…
promised share of the revenue
Promised by whom?
Re: Antigua could hit U.S. with copyright-free downloads
#27It's interesting to see Antigua's reaction to America ignoring the WTO. I think America is on shaky ground here, as many countries are getting sick of America overstepping their boundaries. In theory, every country aligned with the WTO should back Antigua on this. In reality, America will threaten trade sanctions against them too, so it will be a question of who has big enough balls to stand up to the world's bully.…
America is a continent, you mean US. mixing both is rude to millions of non US Americans.
Re: Antigua could hit U.S. with copyright-free downloads
#28It's interesting to see Antigua's reaction to America ignoring the WTO. I think America is on shaky ground here, as many countries are getting sick of America overstepping their boundaries. In theory, every country aligned with the WTO should back Antigua on this. In reality, America will threaten trade sanctions against them too, so it will be a question of who has big enough balls to stand up to the world's bully.…
What boundaries exactly got overstepped? It's a legal collision. US law says no online gambling. Antigua law says "Gambling is great, we welcome US consumers!". US tries to enforce its law via sanctions (I think). WTO law says you can't do that and awards Antigua $21M US in "equivalent sanctions" or somesuch (i.e. it's not a cash award). Yawn. I mean, I think the US law here is dumb, but it's the law. I think the enf…
It only becomes bullying if they start trying to do something like trade sanctions. Grecy is just worried that might happen. If there is no bullying, great!
Re: Antigua could hit U.S. with copyright-free downloads
#29It's interesting to see Antigua's reaction to America ignoring the WTO. I think America is on shaky ground here, as many countries are getting sick of America overstepping their boundaries. In theory, every country aligned with the WTO should back Antigua on this. In reality, America will threaten trade sanctions against them too, so it will be a question of who has big enough balls to stand up to the world's bully.…
What boundaries exactly got overstepped? It's a legal collision. US law says no online gambling. Antigua law says "Gambling is great, we welcome US consumers!". US tries to enforce its law via sanctions (I think). WTO law says you can't do that and awards Antigua $21M US in "equivalent sanctions" or somesuch (i.e. it's not a cash award). Yawn. I mean, I think the US law here is dumb, but it's the law. I think the enf…
> I think the US law here is dumb, but it's the law.
It is what it is, huh? 'It's the law' is a dose of propaganda so you don't feel bad about being forced to do something stupid.
A legal collision sounds so polite. To me, this resembles gang behavior. People want to gamble, so fuck the State. Statists are the hypocrites who let you buy lottery tickets at every corner store.
I agree with you that this isn't limited to the US, but the US wields pretty heavy influence and repercussions for disobedience.
Re: Antigua could hit U.S. with copyright-free downloads
#30The article is very sensationalist. WTO penalties are meant to be a proportional penalty, not some sort of carte-blanche. The sensationalist aspect here is the idea that Antigua might set a far below-market price on intellectual property items. Ah, we'll charge $0.000000000000000000000000000001 per song/movie! Functionally unlimited songs and movies for $1! They'll have to negotiate since we now have a legal way for…
The sensationalist aspect here is the idea that Antigua might set a far below-market price on intellectual property items What's the price of something that has no incremental cost? We've been trained to think it's ~ $15, but there's no real basis for that.
The purpose of the sanction is to deprive one country of revenue, so presumably the prevailing price in that country.