Invoking piracy as a replacement for tariffs

[MindDetective]

An interesting dispute in trade relations with Antigua and Barbuda that has resulted in "legalized" distribution of American intellectual property. http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/01/30/pirates-of-the-caribbean/

Back in 2007, the tiny islands prevailed in trade court against the U.S., successfully arguing that U.S. laws restricting Internet gambling violated the trade in services provisions of the WTO. But then they faced a conundrum. What could they do to punish the U.S.? Antigua’s proposed solution was to “suspend obligations” in the area of TRIPs. In other words, it would start ignoring certain copyright and patent rules.

And a link to the news item linked from the blog article: http://news.yahoo.com/antigua-gets-ok-become-copyright-haven-142239398--finance.html

 

[sixpackshaker]

Nice a little piracy to go along with anonymous banking.

 

[figmentPez]

I can't help but wonder if this will harm local artists in those countries. One of the original reasons for tariffs was to allow domestic goods to compete with foreign goods (i.e. back around the American Revolution, English iron work was taxed to allow American blacksmithing to get off the ground). While it's not the exact same situation where intellectual property is concerned, but devaluing music, movies, books, etc. from American artists is likely to devalue locally produced works as well.

 

[Eriol]

Considering that I saw something a while back with regards to music that proved that copyright ONLY benefits the mega-stars, and the record companies, I don't think it's a big deal. Most of the small artists only get significant revenue from touring, which is obviously not impacted by copyright. So this will probably have almost-no impact on artists there.

On a broader scale, copyright is basically only benefiting the big publishers in the USA, and no other country in the world (India may be an exception with its domestic movie/music industries). SO much is paid to Hollywood and such that it dwarfs any other effects of copyright worldwide. I wish I could find the link, but in Canada, something like 95% or more of copyright fees go directly to the USA, and so enforcement of those laws is actually a drain on the country, not a boost to domestic artists. So copyright treaties and agreements worldwide basically only benefit the USA, and not very many people in the USA either.

 

[GasBandit]

How appropriate, you download like a cow.