
Antigua Government Set to Launch “Pirate” Website To Punish United States - fraqed
http://torrentfreak.com/antigua-government-set-to-launch-pirate-website-to-punish-united-states-130124/
======
DigitalSea
I'm heating up my popcorn kernels in a large pot of oil as we speak, things
are about to get very entertaining. If Antigua start a piracy website selling
US copyrighted material, won't the US just ban access to the site and other
countries (definitely the UK and Australia) will follow suit? Potentially
resulting in free-speech and Internet rights advocacy groups (and the likes of
anonymous) kicking up a massive storm of trouble?

It's obvious the bans on Internet gambling is due to the fact it's hard to
regulate and it's even harder to tax and when it comes down to it, it's all
about money. The US only has themselves to blame, this isn't about protecting
people from addictions because lets face it if you want to gamble legally you
can go to a casino and if you want drugs you can walk down to the corner and
if you want booze you can go to a bottle shop or bar. What's the difference
between Internet gambling and going to a casino? The government can tax non-
Internet based casinos...

If it gets that far and something isn't worked out prior, this will be an
interesting test of Obama's merits as a president and where he stands on
things like unrestricted and free Internet access. Given the US's harsh words
against China's censorship over the years, it would be pretty ironic if the US
were to block such a site.

~~~
mrb
_won't the US just ban access to the site?_

Currently, the US has no ability to do this, they have no country-wide
firewall like China.

At best, they can revoke/hijack the domain name, since ICANN is pretty much
under US influence, but the site would remain accessible by IP address, and it
is likely that tens/hundreds of alternative domain names would be set up by
the site supporters.

Or, the US could hijack the IP space with BGP black holing/null routing, but
this would be seen as an extremely offensive act. It would be the first time a
western country does this AFAIK.

~~~
bo1024
Or simply ask the major ISPs to block it. They are already opting into 6
strikes and throttling certain types of traffic (e.g. torrents). It wouldn't
surprise me at all if they "voluntarily" (or really, voluntarily) blocked such
sites.

~~~
DigitalSea
This is the exact kind of blocking I was thinking of. Merely blocking the
domain would be enough to prevent access from basic users but maybe not
knowledgeable pirates, similar to what has happened with The Pirate Bay in the
UK and ISP's blocking access to it.

~~~
sp332
But blocking that domain in the UK did nothing to slow bittorrent traffic,
according to several sources. [http://torrentfreak.com/censoring-the-pirate-
bay-is-futile-i...](http://torrentfreak.com/censoring-the-pirate-bay-is-
futile-isps-reveal-120711/)

~~~
DigitalSea
Yeah, it was circumvented Pretty quickly. You can't outsmart a pirate. It's a
good example of a government trying to restrict what it's citizens can do
however, even if it failed the government tried to block access in the first
place.

~~~
benologist

       You can't outsmart a pirate.
    

You should share that theory with the ones they put in prison and the many
they've successfully sued.

It's literally irrelevant if you don't _like_ their results, it's malicious if
you encourage others to be ignorant.

~~~
Karunamon
>You should share that theory with the ones they put in prison and the many
they've successfully sued.

Which are a tiny, microscopic even, minority of people who pirate.

~~~
benologist
You're right - they haven't figured out how to sue everyone at once so people
are indeed outsmarting them by clicking links on TPB proxies!

------
ChuckMcM
This is a great development.

Sometime, maybe 20 years from now, you are going to be able to say "I was
there when everyone was figuring out copyrights and patents and stuff."

That said, its an interesting maneuver on Antigua's part. Using the WTO rules
to push the conversation along. The article on Ars Technica about the Dutch
not liking the attention they are getting for facilitating tax avoidance is
another interesting piece of this puzzle. I could imagine a number of ways
this might branch, from a 'economic zone' which is "the internet" to a
outright revolt by the people and the creation of multiple 'shadow' internets.

These are the 'conversations' that I find very interesting:

"Where" is the Internet with respect to taxation and commercial commerce
doctrine?

"What" is role of the economic powers in shaping that doctrine, and "who" is
the economic power with the most influence? (Currently its the US but it will
be China in 5 years if the trend continues)

What is the role of the nation-state in person-to-person interstate commerce?
What "should" it be?

All very very interesting questions and discussions that drive a lot of action
from pornography, to gambling, to software sales, to chat rooms.

~~~
TillE
I'm just waiting for a ruling or law that says digital purchases confer the
same rights (of resale, of perpetual use without asking permission) as sales
of physical media. Period. This is crucial for ebooks in particular.

Until then, we won't be able to declare this madness over and look back.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I don't know how you can solve that problem. The right of first sale works
great when you have an item that, once sold, it guaranteed to be out of your
possession. With digital media, it suddenly gets _really_ murky: what does
first sale mean if I can trivially hand you a copy?

As long as DRM is involved, you don't really own it, so we have to assume the
removal of DRM as a pre-cursor to even being able to consider this question,
but, once it's gone, thing thing your are selling is...what?

I don't foresee this being answered without a wholesale "information is free"
society.

------
tzs
I'm a bit confused by this. Antigua is a party to the Berne Convention, which
requires them to recognize the copyright of works by authors of other Berne
countries the same way it recognizes those of its own authors.

Can the WTO override this? I'd expect that all the WTO could say is that it is
not a violation of treaties and agreements that the WTO oversees for Antigua
to pursue this remedy for the WTO violation, but that wouldn't relieve Antigua
of obligations under non-WTO treaties.

It's been a long time since I've read the relevant treaties and agreements, so
maybe I've forgotten or overlooked something.

~~~
jonpeda
If necessary, Antigua could remove copyright protections to Antiguan authors
(at a loss of nearly $0), in exchange for letting Antiguans ignore foregin
copyrights (at a gain of >>$0)

------
arbuge
It's about time internet gambling became available in the USA and this
prohibition-type nonsense ended once and for all. I don't see why doing it on
the casino floor in Vegas is fine but doing it at home isn't. Sure it's
addictive but so is alcohol, and you don't have to step outside your home to
drink that. The nanny state must go.

~~~
rosser
_I don't see why doing it on the casino floor in Vegas is fine but doing it at
home isn't._

Because it's damned hard to tax gambling winnings when they happen outside the
US government's jurisdiction. A brick-and-mortar casino in Vegas will issue
you a 1099 if you win enough; a virtual casino in Antigua is under no such
obligation.

~~~
jlgreco
How does that work when you "win" but have actually lost? If I go into a
casino, spend 20k, then win back 15k, have I _actually_ lost more than the
difference 5k because that 15k is taxed?

~~~
logn
For amateurs, the IRS has a concept of gambling "sessions". You net your
win/loss within a session. You report the total of all winning sessions as
income, and itemize your losing sessions (which can't exceed wins).

States and cities have varying laws. Basically most states with casinos allow
you to do the same as on federal returns. Those without require you to report
all wins as income and not deduct losses, effectively making it impossible to
gamble with any regularity (since you could easily owe taxes on $200k of
income, of which you only saw $10k... or worse, -$10k).

Pros can simply net their wins/losses (while maintaining a record-keeping
notebook). To qualify as a pro you have to derive almost all income from
gambling.

Gamblers get worried when people want to close tax loopholes (such as itemized
deductions for certain things). They can come scarily close to losing their
way of making a living.

------
sergiotapia
>One option would be to ask users for $5 a month in return for unlimited
access to U.S. media.

Day 1 customer if this is true. I live in Bolivia and will pirate it anyway,
the US media corporations refuse to price things according to my location, so
screw em.

------
aphexairlines
How would Antigua measure $21 million of copyright? For music and movies,
would it be the publisher-suggested retail price of albums and blu-ray discs?

If they want to sell the content online, how do they even find out content
pricing when publishers don't sell direct and give different prices to
different retailers?

If they want to sell content subscriptions, how can they guess how much
content they could stream for $21 million?

~~~
jpdoctor
> _How would Antigua measure $21 million of copyright?_

I think the bigger question is: How would the US verify that only $21M of
infringement occurred?

~~~
gburt
The current "standard" appears to be: connect to the Bittorrent swarm, see how
many people are connected, multiply by $OBSCENE.

That's assuming this ends up peer to peer, I guess that's a bad assumption
given that it will be government-sanctioned.

------
RexRollman
I really think this is interesting for a couple of reasons:

1\. The US, who is a member of the WTO, thinks it doesn't need to comply with
its ruling.

2\. If this does happen, it will be interesting to see if the US tries to
interfere with it. For example, would the US try to prevent people from
reaching the site and would they pressure finance companies to keep people
from buying from it?

I can't wait to see what happens.

------
No1
ur tl;dr summary:

The WTO granted Antigua the right to suspend US copyright to the tune of $21
million annually in 2007 because the US ignored the WTO's earlier (2005)
ruling that the US violated international free-trade laws by barring Antiguan
gambling companies from the US market. Antigua now plans to actually use that
ruling to legally sell US copyrighted material over the Internet without
paying copyright holders.

------
gesman
News flash: Anyone who comes to Antigua with 10TB of High Definition movies is
eligible for Antiguan Citizenship with no extradition guarantees.

------
naner
Does anyone know why the US govt is so vigorously against Internet gambling?
Is it propping up some other illegal activity?

What is the deal?

~~~
Kliment
They can't tax it in either direction, the operators, being out of
jurisdiction, are not liable for taxes, and the winnings that should count as
income do not get reported anywhere.

~~~
Karunamon
But it's not allowed in the USA either where none of those problems would
exist.

------
imglorp
In chess, they call this a fork.

~~~
jrockway
Sort of. Remember that the US has options beyond your average chess piece,
like nuclear weapons.

~~~
flyinRyan
Oh come on. The US would never nuke someone over something like this. If they
did then every nation on earth would have to consider the US the worst kind of
hostile and react accordingly.

~~~
jrockway
Oh, absolutely. I thought that went without saying. My point was only that the
US is not powerless against other nations like a queen under attack by a
knight that is also attacking the king. There is a way out other than US
copyrights going away, though I'm not sure what it is.

------
logn
The US will eventually legalize online gambling and capture their market. Then
the WTO will end the suspension of copyright and then the US wins.

For good gambling discussion: <http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/57/poker-
legislation/>

------
Jagat
How is this going to make any difference?

Pirated content is already available in US and other countries via
thepiratebay and other torrents sites. Pirating copyrighted content is already
considered illegal in the US, and is being actively monitored by media
companies. If this Antiguan website indeed becomes accessible to Americans, or
say other country, how will downloading from this site differ from downloading
via torrents. Since torrent usage is already being monitored in US, there's a
high likelihood that American ISPs would monitor the usage of this site as
well.

Edit: Downloading copyrighted content -> Pirating copyrighted content.

~~~
ChuckMcM
"Pirating" is the act of acquiring a copy of a copyrighted work in a way that
is contrary to existing law. "Downloading" Copyrighted works can be done
completely legally, the simplest example being to buy a copy of a movie on
itunes and transferring it to your phone or tablet. This is a 'third' way of
legally downloading content which is sort of like buying property with a tax
lien on it, the government (in this case the WTO) has stepped in, set aside
the rights of the property owner, and is sanctioning an action to make whole
the person or entity who is wronged.

So the WTO sets aside the rights of US Copyright holders and allows Antiqua to
sell those works, allowing it to recover damages that the US Government has
failed to pay. The government could "pay" the $21M fine and the WTO would
rescind this, but if they do that then they show that they are wrong in
denying access to the US market for Antiqua gambling interests. If they don't
pay it, they are bound by membership in the WTO to abide by its decisions. It
is a delicious paradox.

~~~
ghshephard
""Pirating" is the act of acquiring a copy of a copyrighted work in a way that
is contrary to existing law."

Okay - I'll bite. What does that mean? How does one acquire a copy of a
copyrighted work in a way that is contrary to existing law? Or, alternatively,
How does one acquire a copy of a copyrighted work in a way that is compliant
with existing law? As a "Pro-IP Law" enthusiast, I'm genuinely interested - my
layperson's understanding of the law is that it deals with distribution, not
downloading.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Its pretty simple actually, the owner of the copy 'right' expressly authorizes
the copy being given to you. That is in accordance with the law. So any number
of examples, you buy a book at the book store, you buy a DVD, you watch a
movie at the theater, all of these actions result in a 'copy' of the work
coming into your possession that is sanctioned by the owner of the right.

Any illegal copy is one in which the owner hasn't sanctioned transferring a
copy to you.

Copyright law carves out specific exemptions for lending libraries and the
First Sale doctrine, part of the unified commercial code (UCC) gives you the
right to transfer your copy to a third party as long as no new copies are
created (so you no longer have a copy).

Note I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

~~~
jonpeda
You missed parent's question, which is how the _recipient_ can violate
copyright.

You are describing how the _sender_ can violate copyright.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Fair enough, in the US it apparently only affects the receiver if one can
prove they knew they were in receipt of stolen goods.

------
smelendez
How much bandwidth does Antigua have? Depending on whether they can delegate
their "piracy" privilege to companies in other countries, that might be the
limiting factor.

------
drunkenmasta
so they are going to open a site to sell that which pirates pirate for free? I
don't see the economic sense of it.

~~~
sergiotapia
I see it.

I live in Bolivia and have a semi-decent internet connection. If such a
website existed where I could pay 5 to 10$ per month and I could stream
unlimited videos in decent quality (think 360 to 480p from YouTube) I would
pay it hands down.

It's a matter of conveneance and good service, both of which piracy doesn't
offer.

Why do I pirate media? It's just too expensive for me and the general people
in 3rd world countries.

~~~
mylittlepony
You should take your time to improve your pirating skills and find new
sources.

For example, have you tried with this site?: <http://www.argenteam.net/search>

There you have both the torrents/emule links and really high quality subtitles
if you need them.

~~~
GFischer
I'm not the OP, but I'm from Uruguay and I pay for Netflix because of the
quality and convenience.

The local latin american pirate equivalent is Cuevana:

<http://www.cuevana.tv>

which has had its share of run-ins with justice.

No torrent site has the convenience of Netflix, and Netflix itself is still a
bit behind cable tv in convenience - I want some kind of "channel" experience
for Netflix, I think there are some devices in the U.S. that offer it, but
none here in Uruguay.

------
eriksank
I wonder why Antigua picked that particular industry, actually? There is
simply no god-given right to profit from organized gambling. Why don't they
organize an alternative banking system instead? That should be much more
profitable, and nobody would object to getting rid of the current politician-
controlled banking industry, unless they engage in charging usurious interests
or in similar abuse.

