@Poker Dude 149011 wrote:
One comment, and several questions:
Comment:
I heard the CC, and Mendel, who in my opinion sounded defeated (and not successful), said that there is no way Antigua will do anything imminently in terms of sanctions. Antigua is still hoping that the US will reverse its decision of keeping out foreign online gambling establishments (real fat chance of that happening). He mentioned, I think fairly arbitrarily, that Antigua may wait 6 months before imposing any of these “allowable” sanctions.
Questions:
1) For both this decision and the EU decision this week, it has been pointed out by some, that the US Congress needs to ratify any of these decisions. Assuming that this is the case, would Congress agree to ratifying the nebulous EU decision, and would Congress agree to ratify a decision that will allow Antigua to peddle DVD’s, software, etc. on pennies on the dollar ?
2) How on earth could the U.S. keep track of the intellectual property being sold out of Antigua ? This type of decision would surely be opposed by the Music, movie, and software industries, and would certainly foster a “legal” (of sorts) black market to emerge.
3) What’s the deal on the retration article that Integrity just posted ???
I think we may need an EMERGENCY issue of Perspectives Weekly to put all of this in perspective, if that it at all possible………….
The New York Times article addressed these questions, and you’re right about the entire situation.
Mendel was successful in this case, even though the outcome was not large, he did win the case. Yes, he obviously felt defeated and quite frankly it was discouraging to hear his views on the situation. Saying how it is hard for Antigua to fight because it is Mendel against the entire US government’s source of lawyers and trade experts, was discouraging.
The most curious situation, as Poker Dude pointed out, is how much the copyright material Antigua can sell. Antigua will say what they sold so far was worth $5,000 and the US will say it is worth $50,000, as stated in the New York Times article.
The unfortunate part, as Poker Dude also pointed out, is that I do not believe Antigua has any idea how to implement these new ‘rights’ to sell this material.