World Trade Organization allows Antigua to ignore US$21 million of US copyright per year

Here's some news that peaked my interest. The first things I thought about were music and Second Life... Would it be legal for someone from Antiqua to set up shop in Second Life offering music, movies, games, etc? This is a slow-moving story, and I believe these are all arguing tactics of nations. But, lets say it remains that US copyrights do not stand in Antiqua... hmm...

World Trade Organization allows Antigua to ignore US$21 million of US copyright per year

Arbitrators at the World Trade Organization (WTO) have granted the Caribbean country of Antigua and Barbuda a special dispensation to ignore United States copyright law.

In their report, the WTO panel stated that Antigua possessed "no effective trade sanctions against the USA" and agreed to allow the country to ignore up to US$21 million worth of US copyrights a year. While this amount falls significantly short of the US$3.4 billion per year dispensation that Antigua was seeking, it is far higher than the US$500,000 per year allocation that US negotiators were pushing for.

The ruling comes at the end of a five year legal contest between Antigua and the USA regarding the USA's blocking of offshore online gambling sites. Because many of these sites were located in Antigua, the Antiguan government filed a complaint with the WTO saying that the US prohibition constituted unlawful restriction of trade. When the WTO agreed, Antigua pressed for US$3.4 billion in punitive damages. They asked to have this penalty assessed as permission to copy US intellectual property, since there was no trade embargo that Antigua could impose on the US to collect the amount for itself. The panel agreed that Antigua had no way to collect punitive damages through trade sanctions. However, they lowered the amount of damages to US$21 million per year.

Happy Holidays from Coffee & Pajamas @ Sunset Jazz

I myself celebrate Festivus. Not because I'm just a Seinfeld fan, but because I know every line... word for word... and I know every single possible thing there is to know about Seinfeld. I could answer any question about Seinfeld. (please challenge me if you'd like. You can send an IM question in Second Life, and I'll reply with the answer.)
I believe in Festivus and have been celebrating it for 10 years now. It's something I just am inbred with, I can feel it.

Here's Elfay Pinkdot and Saturday morning at Coffee & Pajamas

I just got the tree there in time for the picture, dropping it in place as the camera snapped.

Some of us were just waking up, while with others of us it was obvious we hadn't slept yet.