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Antigua gets WTO sanction to pirate US goods

21 December 2007 18:35 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus | 8 comments

The country of Antigua came out of World Trade Organization (WTO) arbitration with victory against the U.S. on the issue of gambling revenue. The country, whose economy has shifted from being largely tourism based to having a thriving online gambling industry, was looking for $3.44 billion in compensation for U.S. violations of a WTO treaty. Instead they were awarded $21 million.

Perhaps most importantly to U.S. officials, Antigua received WTO sanction to ignore other treaty provisions regarding intellectual property. Based on the decision they could decide to keep royalty payments to U.S. owned businesses for themselves in order to make up for being denied entry into the biggest online gambling market in the world.

"The United States is pleased that the figure arrived at by the arbitrator is over 100 times lower than Antigua's claim," said Sean Spicer, a spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab. He also cautioned that if Antigua were to actually take advantage of the IP related portion of the decision it "would establish a harmful precedent for a WTO Member to affirmatively authorize what would otherwise be considered acts of piracy, counterfeiting or other forms of IPR infringement."

Apparently the official U.S. position is that this sort of thinking should only be applied to the interests of American businesses as it's essentially the same reasoning used by Antiguan representatives when the gambling issue was initially raised.

Over the last several months U.S. officials have been working on getting the gambling provisions removed from WTO treaties, but as this requires ratification by members like Antigua who seen American dollars as the ultimate goal, the future of such changes is uncertain at best.

Source: Reuters

Permalink to this article

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WTO aspirations may finally convince Russians to better police piracy (18 October 2007)

Antigua petitions WTO for piracy right (25 August 2007)

US moves forward with WTO demands against Chinese pirates (13 August 2007)

US companies decry Chinese discrimination (20 July 2007)

U.S. adds 12 nations to its priority piracy watchlist (30 April 2007)

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nobrainer (Member) 22 December 2007 5:16
its all right for us to screw ppl over says the US "i am the law", but not any of you! "You wouldn't recognize a cunning plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing 'Cunning plans are here again!'" Tor: anonymity online HIDE your IP from the spies, post and browse anonymously! http://www.torproject.org/ THE RIAA Soundexchange Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI. THE MPAA Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, DISNEY, PARAMOUNT, FOX. [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 22 December 2007 5:16
cousinkix (Newbie) 22 December 2007 8:32
WTF do gambling casinos on a small Carribean island have to with selling pirated music, films, software and other counterfeit items? Nevada survives because they have hundreds of casinos and ho houses. There is no state income taxes to support essential government services. Gambling is legal in several other states and on Indian reservations from coast to coast. It's none of Bush's business if foreign countries wanna do the same thing... [ + quote]
ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 22 December 2007 9:37
*Quote:* WTF do gambling casinos on a small Carribean island have to with selling pirated music, films, software and other counterfeit items? The main part of the story is about casinos but the tail end of it a provison was made for them to ignore US CP/IP. hows Antigua data pipes? can servers setup shop there? Arrrr matys LAN HOOOO!!!!! [ + quote]
dRD (I hate titles) 22 December 2007 10:02
To make this WTO ruling much, much more interesting, Slysoft is based on Antigua... [ + quote]
PRCOQUI (Junior Member) 22 December 2007 10:40
dRD That is correct, it is more that the eye can see. [ + quote]
ChiknLitl (Member) 22 December 2007 12:34
*Originally posted by cousinkix:* WTF do gambling casinos on a small Carribean island have to with selling pirated music, films, software and other counterfeit items? Nevada survives because they have hundreds of casinos and ho houses. There is no state income taxes to support essential government services. Gambling is legal in several other states and on Indian reservations from coast to coast. It's none of Bush's business if foreign countries wanna do the same thing... It's not the actual casinos on the island, this is an issue with online gambling. As of about 1.5 years ago you can no longer participate in any online cash games or gambling from within the united states, ex, partypoker .com, etc. You can no longer transfer funds from american banks to accounts at any of these sites. I don't know if this article speaks to the losses incurred secondary to the outlawing of online gambling within the U.S. It would seem that a country that has gambling revenue as it primary GDP (Antigua) would not take it lightly when one of its primary contributors (U.S.) takes steps to restrict trade. [ + quote]
nintenut (Member) 24 December 2007 13:23
The online gambling law is a load of bull, let us do with our money as we wish! [ + quote]
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 28 December 2007 18:52
Good on Antigua this is the way to show that the U.S is not the world power that they thought they are. THe funny thing is when u create a pyrimad shape and make everyone drink from your run offs bellow people will eventually get tired of holding you up there and come from under u and u will come down to the ground where the U.S Govt Belongs :) Show it to the man i say :) [ + quote]