6 ms·

Antigua could hit U.S. with copyright-free downloads

73 points by stevo_perisic 14y ago

grecy 14y ago
It'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. Let's hope we can get a critical mass going.
- ajross 14y ago
  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?
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    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!
  - ahallock 14y ago
    > 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.
    - tedunangst 14y ago
      If people want to gamble, they should vote for representatives that will repeal the gambling ban.
  - politician 14y ago
    No, see, this is wrong. The WTO ruling hinged on the argument that the US specifically allows gambling (horse, dog, state lotteries) but its prohibition Internet gambling amounts to restraint of trade and that Antigua was harmed by this. The only meaningful remedy was to give Antigua the "rights to violate" a certain amount of US copyrights (could you imagine the US actually paying a fine?).
- gbog 14y ago
  America is a continent, you mean US. mixing both is rude to millions of non US Americans.
  - grecy 14y ago
    I apologize, you are very correct.
thechut 14y ago
This is a really interesting idea. Every file sharing site in the world setting up their servers in Antigua could potentially be a huge boost to their economy. However, I bet the US will come to some resolution with them at the minute to prevent this from happening. This article is probably more of a bargaining chip than an actual plan.
AnthonyMouse 14y ago
I don't see how this would actually work. If you set up a pirate website in Antigua, congratulations, good luck competing with the million other ones that already exist. How does it hurt the U.S. in any significant way to go from a million to a million and one? On top of that, it's not like the U.S. is going to sit around and allow it. Expect payment processors to be pressured not to process payments for the service, goods like t-shirts to be seized at the border if you actually try to export them into the U.S. or U.S. friendly nations, etc. They're already ignoring the WTO for the questionable purpose of prohibiting online gambling, you don't think they would do it for this too? In other words, now you can set up a pirate website in Antigua... under pretty much the same conditions as you can anywhere else.
- 67726e 14y ago
  So if they setup a service to, let's say stream new movies, the US would have a hard time blocking a website. As for payment processors, why not bitcoin?
  - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
    1) Movie streaming service is going to fall over in two seconds if you can't do regional caching of popular data. 2) Service is not going to be able to easily attract users if they only accept bitcoin. 3) Why would someone pay money to pirate movies when they can just do it for free?
    - chx 14y ago
      You are not pirating movies, see. This would be a legal site where you are paying a lot less...
      - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
        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 seizing their domain for a year and a half.[1] What's that line? "The truth is not a bulletproof vest." [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/government-goes-0-2-admits-defeat-in-rojadirecta-domain-forfeit-case/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/government-goes-0...
ynniv 14y ago
Antigua: come for the beaches, leave with a truecrypt image of every book worth reading, every song worth hearing, and every movie worth watching.
zokier 14y ago
Antigua could also become the next Cuba.
mdasen 14y ago
The 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 people go get nearly-free, unlimited American content! Except that the world doesn't work that way. If the United States did something wrong and Antigua was awarded $21M worth of American IP as retaliation, then they should get in the ballpark of $21M. I'm sure no one in the US government is buying the "we can set any price we want and become a legal pirate haven if you don't give us what we want" argument. No one at the WTO would either. It makes a great story - especially since many of us hate the way that content industries in the US act. But the reality is that the WTO's decision is meant to be a proportional penalty to the wrong that has been done, not some vindictive nonsense. I mean, sometimes countries would rather pay than change their laws - not because they're trying to be mean, but because they just have different values or fears. For example, let's say that Germany thinks that beer has to be made with German hops. There's nothing wrong with American hops. They're perfectly safe. Maybe they taste like crap, but snobbery isn't a valid reason to exclude a product. But maybe the Germans would rather pay. It happens. Further, let's say that Koreans are afraid that fans that don't auto-shutoff after 30 minutes will suck the air out of a room and kill people. Science doesn't back that up, it's not a valid health and safety issue, and if they want to exclude these non-auto-shutoff fans, they need to pay. Where this happens in the real world are on the edges where science is often murky. Is Pesticide A ok? Is additive B safe? Similarly, it happens with things like gambling where the US wants to regulate it and doesn't feel it can exert authority over foreign-companies (even if it sets regulations for them). None of this is meant to give anyone carte-blanche to force issues. It's meant to keep things equal. Well, if you're going to favour your domestic industries and harm ours by $x, we get to favour our domestic industries and harm your's by the same $x plus maybe some reasonable penalty amount (I don't actually know about penalty amounts) - with "x" being determined by the WTO. Antigua had been arguing to the WTO that the US harmed it in the billions. The WTO awarded them $21M. It sounds more like, "we're going to try to find a loophole because they mostly disagreed with us" than it does legitimate. Really, it sounds like the type of negotiation posturing that no one buys. EDIT: I think the important thing to think about here is how you would want things settled in other cases - a consistant standard of practice - and not just in terms of nations. A lot of us here disliked Apple's harsh stand against Android. We don't mind proportional responses, many of us don't mind paying for quality products or components at a fair price. Likewise, we tend to dislike the "they made a tiny infraction! burn everything that is their's!" disproportionate response. Here we have "the US blocked Antiguan gambling sites in a discriminatory manner". The response shouldn't be, "destroy the entire American IP industry until they submit!" And it's important to note that these standards should (ideally) be applied equally. If we don't wish disproportionate responses against Actor A, we shouldn't wish it against Actor B. The world might be less interesting in such a stable system, but I think we all benefit. We benefit when small wrongs are treated as small wrongs. We suffer when random wrongs carry random penalties.
adventured 14y ago
They're going to suddenly discover al-Qaeda operating in Antigua.
OldSchool 14y ago
Please please, a tropical paradise that's beyond the reach of even just patent trolls. Sign me up.
_delirium 14y ago
Here's yesterday's discussion of a different article on the same move, fwiw: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112748 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112748
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

73 points by stevo_perisic 14y ago

grecy 14y ago

It'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. Let's hope we can get a critical mass going.

ajross 14y ago
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?
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  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!
- ahallock 14y ago
  > 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.
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    If people want to gamble, they should vote for representatives that will repeal the gambling ban.
- politician 14y ago
  No, see, this is wrong. The WTO ruling hinged on the argument that the US specifically allows gambling (horse, dog, state lotteries) but its prohibition Internet gambling amounts to restraint of trade and that Antigua was harmed by this. The only meaningful remedy was to give Antigua the "rights to violate" a certain amount of US copyrights (could you imagine the US actually paying a fine?).
gbog 14y ago
America is a continent, you mean US. mixing both is rude to millions of non US Americans.
- grecy 14y ago
  I apologize, you are very correct.

thechut 14y ago

This is a really interesting idea. Every file sharing site in the world setting up their servers in Antigua could potentially be a huge boost to their economy. However, I bet the US will come to some resolution with them at the minute to prevent this from happening. This article is probably more of a bargaining chip than an actual plan.

AnthonyMouse 14y ago

I don't see how this would actually work. If you set up a pirate website in Antigua, congratulations, good luck competing with the million other ones that already exist. How does it hurt the U.S. in any significant way to go from a million to a million and one? On top of that, it's not like the U.S. is going to sit around and allow it. Expect payment processors to be pressured not to process payments for the service, goods like t-shirts to be seized at the border if you actually try to export them into the U.S. or U.S. friendly nations, etc. They're already ignoring the WTO for the questionable purpose of prohibiting online gambling, you don't think they would do it for this too? In other words, now you can set up a pirate website in Antigua... under pretty much the same conditions as you can anywhere else.

67726e 14y ago
So if they setup a service to, let's say stream new movies, the US would have a hard time blocking a website. As for payment processors, why not bitcoin?
- AnthonyMouse 14y ago
  1) Movie streaming service is going to fall over in two seconds if you can't do regional caching of popular data. 2) Service is not going to be able to easily attract users if they only accept bitcoin. 3) Why would someone pay money to pirate movies when they can just do it for free?
  - chx 14y ago
    You are not pirating movies, see. This would be a legal site where you are paying a lot less...
    - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
      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 seizing their domain for a year and a half.[1] What's that line? "The truth is not a bulletproof vest." [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/government-goes-0-2-admits-defeat-in-rojadirecta-domain-forfeit-case/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/government-goes-0...

ynniv 14y ago

Antigua: come for the beaches, leave with a truecrypt image of every book worth reading, every song worth hearing, and every movie worth watching.

zokier 14y ago

Antigua could also become the next Cuba.

mdasen 14y ago

The 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 people go get nearly-free, unlimited American content! Except that the world doesn't work that way. If the United States did something wrong and Antigua was awarded $21M worth of American IP as retaliation, then they should get in the ballpark of $21M. I'm sure no one in the US government is buying the "we can set any price we want and become a legal pirate haven if you don't give us what we want" argument. No one at the WTO would either. It makes a great story - especially since many of us hate the way that content industries in the US act. But the reality is that the WTO's decision is meant to be a proportional penalty to the wrong that has been done, not some vindictive nonsense. I mean, sometimes countries would rather pay than change their laws - not because they're trying to be mean, but because they just have different values or fears. For example, let's say that Germany thinks that beer has to be made with German hops. There's nothing wrong with American hops. They're perfectly safe. Maybe they taste like crap, but snobbery isn't a valid reason to exclude a product. But maybe the Germans would rather pay. It happens. Further, let's say that Koreans are afraid that fans that don't auto-shutoff after 30 minutes will suck the air out of a room and kill people. Science doesn't back that up, it's not a valid health and safety issue, and if they want to exclude these non-auto-shutoff fans, they need to pay. Where this happens in the real world are on the edges where science is often murky. Is Pesticide A ok? Is additive B safe? Similarly, it happens with things like gambling where the US wants to regulate it and doesn't feel it can exert authority over foreign-companies (even if it sets regulations for them). None of this is meant to give anyone carte-blanche to force issues. It's meant to keep things equal. Well, if you're going to favour your domestic industries and harm ours by $x, we get to favour our domestic industries and harm your's by the same $x plus maybe some reasonable penalty amount (I don't actually know about penalty amounts) - with "x" being determined by the WTO. Antigua had been arguing to the WTO that the US harmed it in the billions. The WTO awarded them $21M. It sounds more like, "we're going to try to find a loophole because they mostly disagreed with us" than it does legitimate. Really, it sounds like the type of negotiation posturing that no one buys. EDIT: I think the important thing to think about here is how you would want things settled in other cases - a consistant standard of practice - and not just in terms of nations. A lot of us here disliked Apple's harsh stand against Android. We don't mind proportional responses, many of us don't mind paying for quality products or components at a fair price. Likewise, we tend to dislike the "they made a tiny infraction! burn everything that is their's!" disproportionate response. Here we have "the US blocked Antiguan gambling sites in a discriminatory manner". The response shouldn't be, "destroy the entire American IP industry until they submit!" And it's important to note that these standards should (ideally) be applied equally. If we don't wish disproportionate responses against Actor A, we shouldn't wish it against Actor B. The world might be less interesting in such a stable system, but I think we all benefit. We benefit when small wrongs are treated as small wrongs. We suffer when random wrongs carry random penalties.

adventured 14y ago

They're going to suddenly discover al-Qaeda operating in Antigua.

OldSchool 14y ago

Please please, a tropical paradise that's beyond the reach of even just patent trolls. Sign me up.

_delirium 14y ago

Here's yesterday's discussion of a different article on the same move, fwiw: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112748 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112748

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]