Antigua vs America: Big 4 music wars
p2pnet news | Freedom:- (I’d planned on posting only ‘Christmas’ stories, today, with a headline roundup later. But I’m making one exception with this, with Yo Ho Ho instead of Ho Ho Ho as my excuse 
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United States - Measures Affecting the Cross-Border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services
That’s the heading for a WTO post with “US-Gambling” as the ’short title’.
It looks harmless enough and concludes:
On 21 June 2007, Antigua and Barbuda requested authorization from the DSB, pursuant to Article 22.2 of the DSU, to suspend the application to the United States of concessions and related obligatins [sic] of Antigua and Barbuda under the GATS and the TRIPS Agreement. On 23 July 2007, the United States (i) objected to the level of suspension of concessions and obligations proposed by Antigua and Barbuda and (ii) claimed that Antigua and Barbuda’s proposal does not follow the principles and procedures set forth in Article 22.3 of the DSU. At its meeting on 24 July 2007, the DSB agreed that the matter referred to by the United States be referred to arbitration.
Now, “The World Trade Organization has granted the Caribbean nation of Antigua the right to pirate American goods and services like films and music until the U.S. government either permits Americans to gamble over foreign-based sites or eliminates its own exceptions for remote betting on horse and dog racing, including over the Internet,” posts maths on music2dot0.
He goes on:
It is a rather bizarre situation that seems to expose the duplicity exhibited by the US, which does not waste any opportunities to evangelize and impose its holier-than-thou moral views on gambling and music, film and software piracy upon other countries often for the purposes of simply aiming to protect its own trade interests spurred on by powerful internal US lobby groups.
And under Schoolyard Bully, maths says:
The United States Trade Representative Sean Spicer warned Antigua from proceeding with “acts of piracy, counterfeiting or violations of intellectual property rights” while they try and negotiate further. Ominously, he warned that continuing with any such planned actions would “undermine Antigua’s claimed intentions of becoming a leader in legitimate electronic commerce, and would severely discourage foreign investment” in Antigua. With the US wielding undue power with regards to financial services critical to global e-commerce like Visa and Mastercard, and not being hesitant to withhold these essential global services from not only Antigua but as we have seen in the past, renegade Russian music site Allofmp3.com also, we have to ask ourselves if the US should continue to be allowed to be in a position to use these essential services as a means to browbeat those that don’t comply with its wishes and own laws. (As a point of contention, the local Russian courts subsequently deemed Visa’s and Mastercard’s withdrawal of service to be based on areas of law not within their jurisdiction and hence illegal)
States the New York Times:
“In an unusual ruling on Friday at the World Trade Organization, the Caribbean nation of Antigua won the right to violate copyright protections on goods like films and music from the United States - an award worth up to $21 million - as part of a dispute between the countries over online gambling.
“The award follows a W.T.O. ruling that Washington had wrongly blocked online gambling operators on the island from the American market at the same time it allowed online wagering on horse racing.
“Antigua and Barbuda had claimed damages of $3.44 billion a year. That makes the relatively small amount awarded Friday, $21 million, something of a setback for Antigua, which had been struggling to preserve its gambling industry.”
Meanwhile:
“As reported by CasinoGamblingWeb.com, in a conference call on Friday the successful lawyer for Antigua, Mark Mendel pointed out that ‘Antigua cannot be vilified by the United States government as criminals as they will not actually be breaking copyright and piracy laws’,” says maths, adding:
“He insisted that ‘Antigua was not aiming for this judgement, rather, they simply would like for the US to follow the rules of the WTO by allowing Antiguan gaming operators to offer horse race betting to Americans, just as American gaming operators are currently allowed to do. Until they do meet the legalities of the WTO rulings it will be legal to sell copyrighted materials.’
“Although the online gambling industry would see the $21 million per year limitation as a setback, Mendel highlighted that for a start as of now, they can cumulatively add the amount for 2006 combined with that for 2007, and the sanctioned amount will add up to hundreds of millions of dollars after a few years.
“More worryingly for the US music industry, as this will also include the right to distribute digital music and as anyone who deals in this will be only too aware, there is no reliable recourse to monitor revenues, and for all practical purposes it seems that Antigua is basically getting an unlimited free pass to gorge themselves silly on US copyrighted and trademarked products.”
On Friday, “the United States trade representative issued a stern warning to Antigua to avoid acts of piracy, counterfeiting or violations of intellectual property rights while talks continue,” says the NYT.
“The trade office said such behavior would ‘undermine Antigua’s claimed intentions of becoming a leader in legitimate electronic commerce, and would severely discourage foreign investment’ in the country.”
Stay tuned.
Also See:
music2dot0 - WTO Legalizes Music Piracy in Antigua, December 23, 2007
New York Times - In Trade Ruling, Antigua Wins a Right to Piracy, December 22, 2007
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December 25th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Anyone know of a good web host provider that is located in Antigua? The Pirate Bay might look into setting up shop there. While I am American and HATE the W.T.O. and all of the other globalist attempt at interfering with our laws, I also despite the moral rot that is disseminated by both gambling and “entertainment cartels.” Besides, Antigua is a sovereign nation, and should decide its own laws.