aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Antigua explores violating U.S. copyright protections
ADAM DAVISON reporting: [The U.S. was] breaking the cardinal rule of international trade law, at least according to the government of Antigua. The U.S. was saying that foreign companies, like companies from Antigua and other countries, were not allowed to provide internet gambling services to American citizens. But American companies could provide gambling services, specifically horseracing betting, through the internet to U.S. citizens. And according to the World Trade Law, you cannot allow American companies to do something that you don’t allow foreign companies to do.
Antigua went to the World Trade Organization Court and won. But American law hasn’t changed in accordance with the ruling:
DAVIDSON: Basically, the U.S. accidentally allowed the WTO to rule over its own domestic gambling laws. What this has done is sent a chill through many countries who have thought, well, if the U.S., the most powerful country in the world, can make a mistake, we probably all could make mistakes.
The other issue that concerns at least some people is that the U.S. is effectively saying we don’t care about World Trade Law. We are big and strong and Antigua is small, and so we’re going to allow mite to be right rather than law to be right.
BLOCK: Well does Antigua have any trade weapons in its arsenal that it can use against the United States here?
DAVIDSON: Well what it would normally do is just impose sanctions on certain U.S. goods. But of course, Antigua is a tiny country. It can’t really have an impact on the U.S. in that way. So Antigua is exploring violating U.S. copyright protections. In other words, Antigua, in retaliation to the U.S., would flood the U.S. with knock-offs of movies and software and music. The Americans say that’s illegal, Antigua will never get away with it. But Antigua is clearly trying to figure out what slingshot this David could use against the U.S. Goliath.
