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.
Antigua has had the rights to $21M worth of US copyrights since 2005. They'd originally won $4B, but the US got that cut down to $21M.
Frankly, it's about time they started taking advantage of this. It's only been what, 7 years? That's $147M of unclaimed revenue which could have been used for schools and their local economy (it's a small island nation).
Back in the day, I thought it would be cool if they used the ruling to run a private World of Warcraft server. There are other more interesting things besides music and movies that they have the right to copy - e.g. Elsevier journal articles.
> 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."
I love your optimism that this issue will be resolved in 20 years, but I don't share it. In 20 years patents issued today will barely be expiring and copyrights issued today will have ~90 years left, depending on the author's date of death.
I find the conversations you mention interesting, but frustrating, since most deep philosophical questions regarding law are resolved not by the moralists or philosophers but by the lobbyists and the pre-lobbyist politicians.
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.
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.
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.