Antigua wins right to pirate American films, music and software. - December 22nd 2007 - By Milly M.
As twisted as things can get, lo and behold, the Caribbean nation of Antigua has won the right to violate copyright protections on films, music and software from the United States. This ruling was made by the World Trade Organization (W.T.O).
As you may know, Antigua has been in a dispute with the US over online gambling. Fridays award by the WTO is said to be worth about $21 million but is inadvertently a slap in the face as Antigua and Barbuda have claimed damages of $3.44 billion a year following a previous ruling by WTO barring online gambling operators from the island from the American market.
Playing fair though, the WTO has said that the sneaky Americans were wrong to block online gambling operators while still allowing online wagering on horse racing.
The US has gone further, throwing its toys around, and said its bad bad behavior only did about $500,000 worth of damages and not $3.4 billion as claimed.
Personally , I think this ruling is mind blowing. I never thought I'd see the day when one country would be allowed to violate another's intellectual property as a form of compensation.
This could stir up all kinds of trouble in terms of more countries possibly suing the U.S for bad trade policies and could also cause rampant piracy worldwide.
"That has only been done once before and is, I believe, a very potent weapon," said Mark Mendel, a lawyer representing Antigua, after the ruling. "I hope that the United States government will now see the wisdom in reaching some accommodation with Antigua over this dispute."
"Even if Antigua goes ahead with an act of piracy or the refusal to allow the registration of a trademark, the question still remains of how much that act is worth," said Brendan McGivern, a trade lawyer with White & Case in Geneva.
"The Antiguans could say that's worth $50,000, and then the U.S. might say that's worth $5 million." He predicted that "the U.S. is going to dog them on every step of the way."