Similar to how America used to disrespect foreign intellectual property back in the day: http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/khan.copyright http://eh.net/encyclo

Similar to how America used to disrespect foreign intellectual property back in the day: http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/khan.copyright http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/khan.copyright 'The U.S. was long a net importer of literary and artistic works, especially from England, which implied that recognition of foreign copyrights would have led to a net deficit in international royalty payments. The Copyright Act recognized this when it specified that "nothing in this act shall be construed to extend to prohibit the importation or vending, reprinting or publishing within the United States, of any map, chart, book or books ... by any person not a citizen of the United States." Thus, the statutes explicitly authorized Americans to take free advantage of the cultural output of other countries. As a result, it was alleged that American publishers "indiscriminately reprinted books by foreign authors without even the pretence of acknowledgement."' It's a tendency that nations (and startups) break the rules as much as possible in the early stages or when behind, and as soon as they're ahead seek to prevent others from getting similarly ahead by lobbying for stricter regulations and intellectual property rights.