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US Lists Ukraine as a “Priority Foreign Country” for Trade Sanctions

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Re: US Lists Ukraine as a “Priority Foreign Country” for Trade Sanctions

#4

TL;DR anyone?

TL;DR: The US Government is in Hollywood's back pocket. The Ukraine has been identified as a major source of music and movie piracy.

"The Special 301 report identifies some of the key foreign threats to America's copyright industries," said MPAA chairman and CEO Chris Dodd:

http://www.screendaily.com/news/distribution/ukraine-on-pira...

Re: US Lists Ukraine as a “Priority Foreign Country” for Trade Sanctions

#6

TL;DR anyone?

TL;DR: it's not directly mentioned in the linked article but it looks like the United States is pissed at http://www.ex.ua/ for media piracy [1].

A little background: Ex.ua is a combined direct-download file hosting service, search engine and torrent tracker that's positively huge in CIS countries. Unlike private torrent trackers to which it can be compared in terms of quality and quantity of pirated content Ex.ua does not have an invite system and the company that owns it is fairly public about its activity up to and including officially sponsoring numerous music events and even charity.

For an interesting look into a kind of a "parallel web" I'd suggest that you get a Ukrainian proxy (and translation software, should you need it) and browse the website yourself for a while but here is a sample search for "star wars 1080p": [2]. Locally you should be able to download at over 100 Mbps given sufficient bandwidth at your end thanks to the Ukrainian Internet exchange point (UA-IX) but from most other countries it's not only considerably slower but also only partially accessible. Just how much you can access depends on your IP's geolocation.

[1] http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2013/2013SPEC301UKRAINE.PDF

[2] http://htmlpaste.com/16d34b5749f5a990fc7c66dfad6e650fa1de476... (this is just the first 100 results of an undisclosed total)

Re: US Lists Ukraine as a “Priority Foreign Country” for Trade Sanctions

#7
post #4

TL;DR anyone?

TL;DR: The US Government is in Hollywood's back pocket. The Ukraine has been identified as a major source of music and movie piracy. "The Special 301 report identifies some of the key foreign threats to America's copyright industries," said MPAA chairman and CEO Chris Dodd: http://www.screendaily.com/news/distribution/ukraine-on-pira...

also noteworthy is the US is doing this unilaterally rather than go through the WTO, which is probably against WTO rules and possibly US law as well. This is the first time US has threatened a WTO member (while they are actually a member).

Re: US Lists Ukraine as a “Priority Foreign Country” for Trade Sanctions

#8
post #4

TL;DR anyone?

TL;DR: The US Government is in Hollywood's back pocket. The Ukraine has been identified as a major source of music and movie piracy. "The Special 301 report identifies some of the key foreign threats to America's copyright industries," said MPAA chairman and CEO Chris Dodd: http://www.screendaily.com/news/distribution/ukraine-on-pira...

Can we also say that the Ukrainian government is in piracy's back pocket, then? Or do you believe that the 301 report has incorrectly identified the Ukraine?

Re: US Lists Ukraine as a “Priority Foreign Country” for Trade Sanctions

#10
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TL;DR: The US Government is in Hollywood's back pocket. The Ukraine has been identified as a major source of music and movie piracy. "The Special 301 report identifies some of the key foreign threats to America's copyright industries," said MPAA chairman and CEO Chris Dodd: http://www.screendaily.com/news/distribution/ukraine-on-pira...

Can we also say that the Ukrainian government is in piracy's back pocket, then? Or do you believe that the 301 report has incorrectly identified the Ukraine?

There is a major difference. The Ukrainian government does not do anything about the piracy. In theory it might be because gov is in piracy's pocket, but most likely they just don't care. It requires inaction from them, which is usually not very hard. However, the US government does stuff based on hollywood complaints. To be honest, circumventing WTO rules aside, the USTR is simply enforcing the law that was passed by the congress, so the congress sits in the pocket of Hollywood, not the USTR, if there is any link.
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