Today’s Topic: Antigua, Gambling, and the disregard for American Intellectual Property Rights
On December 21st, 2007, the United States government showed Americans just how much infringement can be foisted on member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) without consideration for the achievements of a member country’s people.
This disdain was shown through a World Trade Organization decision that Washington had wrongly blocked Antiguan online gambling operations from the American market. The fact that these organizations have and continue to provide online horse racing gambling is a moot point, but also an interesting dichotomy that the US government should address.
The fact is that the United States holds control over its own gambling concerns and has reason to want to limit outside gaming influences. There is a necessity for control over both income assessments of the gamblers of American citizenry for appropriate taxing and for purposes of maintaining control over what often becomes undue influence over gamblers, particularly those whose positions can become compromised even up to the point of damaging National Security.
The real problem is that under American treaty with the WTO a method of payment to end the dispute was enacted which directly took rights away from Americans. Specifically the method used was to allow Antigua to violate US copyright laws by distributing films, music and software, amongst other copyrighted materials, without payment of the fees usually a necessary part of an intellectual property owner’s income.
This action of allowing another sovereign entity the right to be compensated by free use of a different country’s people’s copyrights is a direct tax on a specific portion of the American people without any representation or possibility of addressing their grievance with the taxing organization. While Americans and American companies are fighting to maintain their rights to distribution of their copyrighted properties, the WTO is freely throwing those rights away and can do so by treaty.
We actually don’t need to question these actions because we’ve seen it before, time and time again, with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The United States takes precedence in negotiations whatever the ultimate consequences. By being a participant in the WTO, the United States has given up a number of freedoms of their citizenry in order to promote a political Empire, and a corporate Hegemony. And let’s not get this wrong. I am saying that Imperialist America is a front for global command by Corporations who have the rights of citizens in the United States.
Oh, but they have a lot more dollars in their pockets, and this is why the US supports an organization like the WTO without any support from the American public because our membership wasn’t even publicly notified of such a treaty.
Currently the WTO is not so much of transparent organization, but that it is still an organization which despises the intrusion of its closed meeting events.
The coolness of which this organization presents itself should be an affront to all Americans who wish to set for themselves and their country the avenues to pursue. If the country wants our servicemen out of Iraq they should have or servicemen out of Iraq. But if America wants one thing and the WTO wants another, well the guys with the money who have multi-national business concerns are going to win.
Come on, America. We have some old soldier’s homes because some of our people need it. Especially those who have served our country, We have PostTraumatic Stress Disorder filling the ranks of our returning workforce due to numerous tours to a war zone. Even Ronald Reagan wasn’t this stupid.
We have a total shift in taxes from the federal level to the state level, and now we have the federal government not paying the appropriate amount of those revenues to the states, requiring even higher local taxes.
We have the World Bank going into sovereign countries to establish a foothold into their economics, thus giving the opportunity to blackmail arising countries to either shit or get off the pot. And then the IMF steps in with even more stipulations about how this country can ultimately become even more indebted, whilst looking to be a responsible economic motivator.
As usual, America’s government has put the American people into an untenable position where our own expansive control over other nations has turned around and bit us in the ass. Now we have super-governmental agencies deciding for you and me that if we come up with intellectual property, properly applied for and received, then you still don’t have the right to collect your royalties.
If this world is going to go global, and I think it is, then we are going to have to accept some legal precedence in determining just who has the say.
I’d say that the individual who properly registers his/her intellectual property has the ultimate say over the use of their product. By establishing the highest level of control we combat the opportunity of one’s efforts and intelligence being exploited.
By the WTO rendering their judgement, Pandora’s box is open to scrutiny. What is available in Freedom of Information Act requests? What is possible to pry away from the defendant that may adversely effect the security of a nation or the world?
Antigua doesn’t necessarily have to decide to ramp up factories which duplicate American music CDs or American movie DVDs, but the fact that it can by virtue of the WTO decision means that there’s a lot more at stake in globalization than has previously been noticed.
12:47:14 PM 
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