Antigua Files for Remedies- $3.4 billion per year in intellectual prop

[Gildwulf]

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This ruling means nothing and is a dead end. The US will just take the ball and walk home. The US has ignored WTO rulings in the past and will continue to ignore it so long as it has the international clout to do so.

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That's exactly what would happen if the American people simply sat back and refused to do anything. However, that's not the case. There are several bills in Congress to modify UIGEA, and we're getting attention. This is one more tool for us. Also, the social conservatives who were forced this on us don't have nearly the power they had last year.

As I mentioned before, I don't see the finish line. We have a long way to go. This is simply one more step toward us achieving our goal.

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Ya, that will be an interesting US lobbying group.

Lobbyist: we really want you to support the WTO decision to pay $3.4 billion to Antigua on a clause about gambling.

US Congressman: but that will take billions away from my constituents and is money that could be spent on healthcare and education. Not to mention 10s of billions of dollars in potential lawsuits that it opens up if the US agrees to pay.

Lobbyist: yea but if we do this people will be able to gamble on the internet.

Congressman: ...

[TheEngineer]

???????????

The U.S. doesn't have to support the WTO decision for it to take effect. The WTO isn't sending us a bill. Antigua plans to take the money by violating our intellectual property rights (i.e, they can pirate movies, software, etc.). I guess you didn't read any of the posts before stopping by to tell us how misguided you think we are.

Are you trying to get us to give up?!?!

[Gildwulf]

Re: examples of where US has ignored WTO in the past

In 2003, the US had sanctions of $150 million against it by the WTO Appelate body by a handful of small countries. The claims were about an illegal anti-dumping law (the Byrd Amendment) which is valid in the US. Similar situation.

link

The US has ignored it basically and has been appealing up the wazoo.

Other similar cases were on steel, cotton and tax breaks given to US exporters which result in sanctions of billions of dollars. AFAIK lawmakers in the US basically ignored all of this. Anything that requires an amendment to US laws based on international law has probably close to zero chance of passing.

You should focus your energies on other options. This is a dead end. The U.S. will leave the WTO before it has to pay billions in sanctions.

[Russ Fox]

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I would like to see an example of where the US has "ignored" WTO rulings in the past. I could cite plenty of examples of the US using the WTO to get rulings against other countries (we just started another one with China, for example).

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In my field, tax, there's a long-playing example that was finally resolved a couple of years ago. The United States used to have targeted tax breaks helping businesses that exported. The Common Market (yes, this dates back that many years ago) complained, and there were battles over this. Indeed, I think this dates back to the mid-1970s (before I was in college), but I'm unsure of just how old this issue was. But I digress....

In any case, when GATT and the WTO came about, there was an annual ritual: The WTO would rule that the tax scheme passed by Congress was invalid. Congress would pass a new tax scheme that was just as invalid (and, Congress knew that it was invalid; this was discussed on the record at the time). The European Union would complain, file a WTO action, and the following year the WTO would rule against the US. After several years of repeating this cycle, Congress passed the Section 199 Production Activities Deduction (which is the law today).

When I read some of the posts on this issue (and other similar issues), there's a dose of un-reality. When the first WTO complaint was won by Antigua, the U.S. appealed on moral grounds. The WTO upheld the right of the US to ban all online gambling on these grounds. (The US, though, allowed online horserace betting, thus, in the end, losing the case.)

There is no way that Congress--Democrat or Republican--is going to cede an issue (gambling) to the WTO or any other organization that is considered a morals issue rightly to be decided by Congress. Indeed, if the WTO told that to Congress, the vote to withdraw from GATT/WTO would be close to unanimous in Congress.

I agree completely with Gidwulf that the US will leave GATT/WTO before it pays a penny in sanctions.

-- Russ Fox

[Uglyowl]

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The US has ignored it basically and has been appealing up the wazoo.

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The U.S. has been appealing this up the wazoo as well and keeps losing. It is time to pay the piper now, it's appeals are up.


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The U.S. will leave the WTO before it has to pay billions in sanctions.

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By leaving the WTO, it will pay billions in sanctions indirectly, the U.S. needs the WTO

[TheEngineer]

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This is a dead end. The U.S. will leave the WTO before it has to pay billions in sanctions.

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Again, the U.S. doesn't have to PAY, in terms of getting a bill.

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You should focus your energies on other options.

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Is that an order? Quite authoritarian, considering we've not seen you much on this forum and considering you don't seem to have researched this much.

[Gregatron]

While I do believe that people have a tendency to believe what they want to, and perhaps we are seeing the world through rose colored glasses, I'm just not *getting* your argument GW. I certainly don't see the Bush Administration LEAVING the WTO over this, and certainly not their (hopefully) more sane replacement. We have been central in supporting the WTO over the years. We are not leaving over something like this, and certainly not over a measly few billion dollars.

That said, these clowns in executive branch live their own world, so maybe they are just that crazy. More likely, they hem and haw until they leave office.

[Jay Cohen]

The FSC tax issue and the Byrd amendment were ulltimately resolved, but only after Congress was looking down the sanctions barrel. And it did take some time.

In the FSC tax issue with the EU, the WTO awarded about $18 billion in sanctions against unrelated industries. It was only when these unrelated industries found out there were going to be tariffs on their exports that they started calling their Congressmen and Congress took action.

For example, (I don't know if apple growers were targeted, but ;et's say they were.), Farmer John calls uphis Congressman and said I don't know what a FSC tax is, but you better fix this because it's about to have an impact here on your constituents.

You get the idea. IP interests don't want this to happen just as much for precedent as anything else.

[TheEngineer]

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There is no way that Congress--Democrat or Republican--is going to cede an issue (gambling) to the WTO or any other organization that is considered a morals issue rightly to be decided by Congress. Indeed, if the WTO told that to Congress, the vote to withdraw from GATT/WTO would be close to unanimous in Congress.

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No doubt. We won't give up our sovereignty. The WTO cannot "force" us to to this. Rather, this is a tool we can use to our advantage, so we should use it.

[Robin Foolz]

say antigua gets what it wants. will 3 billion worth of pirated stuff hurt usa businesses--such as the music and movie industry--enough that they will get on the horn with the government to work on a resolution? i sure hope so.