Awsome!!!!!

The WTO has just granted Antigua and Barbuda the right to ignore U.S. Copyrights because of our clamp-down on gambling:

A long-simmering trade conflict between the United States and Antigua and Barbuda appears to be boiling over.

Antigua and Barbuda, which has a $1 billion economy, is planning on getting legal retribution from the United States’ $15 trillion economy over its refusal to let Americans gamble at online sites based in the Caribbean nation — perhaps by offering downloads of American intellectual property, like Hollywood films, network television shows or hit pop songs. On Monday, the World Trade Organization gave its go-ahead for Antigua and Barbuda’s tentative plan.

“The economy of Antigua and Barbuda has been devastated by the United States government’s long campaign to prevent American consumers from gambling,” Harold Lovell, Antigua’s finance minister, said in a statement. “These aggressive efforts to shut down the remote gaming industry in Antigua have resulted in the loss of thousands of good-paying jobs and seizure by the Americans of billions of dollars belonging to gaming operators and their customers.”

The conflict’s roots are a decade old. The World Trade Organization said that the United States had violated its trade agreements by preventing Americans from betting at sites based in Antigua and Barbuda. Because Washington is unwilling to make the betting legal, the countries have been locked in a dispute over what constitutes fair trade practices and fair compensation.

The online gambling industry was at one point the second-largest employer in the Caribbean country, its government has said, and economists estimated its worth at $3.4 billion. Gambling employment has dropped to fewer than 500 people from more than 4,000 as a result of the United States’ trade policy, it said.

On Monday, a dispute settlement body in Geneva gave Antigua and Barbuda the nod to, in essence, violate American intellectual property rights to make up its losses, calculated at $21 million a year.

It remains murky just how the Antigua and Barbuda government might go about it. But trade watchers suggested it might set up a site where viewers could pay a pittance to watch a film or television show with an American copyright. The United States might not be able to shut the site down under international law.

BTW, it was the US that insisted on having cross-retaliation, where misbehavior in one industry could result in penalties at another industry.

In a best case scenario, I hope that this doesn't get resolved, and the "content owners"  (actually the holders of exclusive licenses) find their stuff on the internet for next to nothing.

Hollywood and Silicon Valley will doubtless freak out, but if this continues down this path, and Antigua does distribute IP protected content, the US is forbidden from retaliating, so we see what happens if a bit of IP sanity breaks out.

My guess is that it won't be the apocalypse that the MPAA and the RIAA predicts, and maybe they will be viewed like the proverbial "Boy Who Cried Wolf."

My previous posts about this are here, and it appears to me that this is moving very slowly, my earliest post is from 2007(!), and the complaint, and the remedy, remain the same as my original post, but we now finally have a ruling.

Gambling Dispute With a Tiny Country Puts U.S. in a Bind - New York Times

The US-Antigua dispute over Net gambling is escalating, and it's hit the NY Times, which means that it's really hit the mainstream, but before I get into that, I have to acknowledge Dean Bakers incisive analaysis, and the magnificent snark therein, where he says "Antigua Threatens the United States with Free Trade", which is absolutely true. IP restrictions are restrictions on trade through exclusive licensing.

A brief recap on the whole Internet gambling business, the US implemented an internet casino gambling ban. It still allows for other internet gambling, "including the online purchase of lottery tickets^*, participation in Web-based pro sports fantasy leagues and off-track wagering on horse racing."

Online casinos are a big part of the Antiguan economy. It's the 2nd largest employer on the Island.

So Antigua takes it to the WTO, Antigua wins. Big whoop. Really....Who cares. If they are allowed to place tarrifs on US cars, or toothpaste, what difference does it make? Their population is around 70,000, so it's a negligible impact, right?

Wrong

What the Antigua asked for, and received as a sanction was the right to ignore US IP restrictions, and to distribute US IP protected products without restriction.

While the drug manufacturers have nothing to fear, it's not like they are going to become a Viagra^® manufacturing powerhouse, the makers of non-tangible items, like movies, music, software, etc. are in the process of freaking out, which looks something like this: , because the island is well wired (from the online Casinos), and can set up an operation that would make AllofMP3.com look like a Sunday social.

Truth be told, the consequences will not be as dire as IP companies will make out. I expect that very few people who would otherwise pay for these products will download them, and my guess is that these companies know that.

The reason that they are concerned is that if I am right, and the consequences will be minor, then you will see another argument against draconian IP restrictions, because the sky did not fall.

This may be of particular interest to the Chinese too, as this ruling could be extended to the "Great Firewall of China.

^*On the matter of state lottery tickets, I believe that they should be treated differently, being a state run activity and a revenue generator, but when we signed onto the WTO, it specifically forbade this.

American gamble or bluff: WTO members bet on Antigua | The Register

When you look at the legislation, and the debate in the Congress, it was clearly about protecting US race tracks and casinos.

There are some movies that I would dearly love to download form Antigua, and they could manufacture some very cheap generics of high demand drugs.

The drug tourism should more than make up for the loss of gambling revenue.

American gamble or bluff: WTO members bet on Antigua

By Burke Hansen in San Francisco

Antigua yesterday filed for formal trade sanctions against the United States, demanding $3.4 billion in compensation from the truculent, recalcitrant super power for failing to open its domestic market to remote gambling services. Antigua, as expected, was not alone; the hottest online gaming market in the world, the EU, also filed for sanctions.

Antigua has been embroiled in a four year battle with the US over the provision of remote gambling services, and the WTO has repeatedly ruled against the US, in increasingly stern terms. After the US tried to insist to the WTO that it had brought itself into compliance without doing anything at all – a novel argument that riled the WTO compliance panel – the WTO issued a definitive and far reaching ruling in favor of Antigua, opening the door for sanctions for the tiny Caribbean country that has seen one of its principal industries pummeled repeatedly by the American Department of Justice (DOJ).

The rules of the WTO typically provide for traditional tit-for-tat trade sanctions, but for tiny countries like Antigua that depend heavily on imports, such an approach can be economically devastating, while doing virtually nothing to penalize the offending nation. The WTO thereby provides an alternative: countries may suspend their own obligations to the offending country. Antigua thus could sell unlicensed copies of American movies or software, for example, to compensate itself for losses resulting from the American actions.
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