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The tiny Caribbean island of Antigua is set to begin selling copyright-free US movies, DVDs, CDs, games, software a more beginning this coming Monday January 28, 2013.
The move is in response to the USA’s failure to adhere to a World Trade Organization ruling made several years ago in regard to online gambling.
In March 2003, the government of Antigua and Barbuda ("Antigua") commenced the dispute resolution process of the World Trade Organization ("WTO") to challenge the United States' total prohibition of cross-border gambling services offered by Antiguan online gambling operators to consumers in the United States.
On March 24, 2004, the WTO Dispute Panel issued a confidential ruling in favor of Antigua, finding that the US restrictions against online gambling violated international treaties. The US appealed this decision and lost. They were ordered to pay Antigua $21m in annual compensation
After several rounds of discussions and no compensation forthcoming, trade sanctions were issued by the WTO against the US for failing to abide by the original ruling.
Antigua has requested approval to achieve its concessions by suspending up to $3.4 billion annually in intellectual property rights with respect to American copyrighted and trademarked products under the WTO's intellectual property rights agreement, or "TRIPS". A decision by the Arbitrators is anticipated by the end of November 2007.
And so we have the Caribbean nation on Monday moving forward with plans to begin the “legal” sale of these bootleg digit media products. The likes of Microsoft, et al. won’t be happy.
Mark Mendel, Antigua’s lead attorney in the WTO fight, insists this is not piracy.
From CalvinAyre.com:
TorrentFreak speculated that Antigua might charge users $5 per month for unlimited downloads of US digital media, but all Reuters was able to get out of Mendel was that the plan could include copyrights, patents or trademarks.
“If, when, how it’s going to happen, people will just have to wait to find out.” Asked whether Antigua could conceivably charge users a penny per download, Mendel said only that such a scheme was “an intellectual possibility … $21m could be all accomplished in one go or in 50 million goes. The dollar figure is not important.”
Antigua is well aware how sensitive a subject this is for American politicians, who are undoubtedly getting an earful from US IP lobby groups. As Mendel put it, “American intellectual property rights holders are fighting piracy across the globe. They hate the theft of their intellectual property rights and they spend enormous sums trying to prevent it,” Mendel said.
Mendel told Reuters: “The WTO was sold to smaller countries as a level playing field and a way for them to expand the reach of commerce, subject to a set of rules that apply to everybody. I think more than anything else this case is about fairness. The WTO is supposed to be fair.”
- Alejandro Botticelli, Gambling911.com
