Antigua Starting To Get Angry With US

Found on Techdirt on Tuesday, 22 May 2007
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We've been covering the ongoing dispute between the US and Antigua over online gambling for more than seven years, and to be honest, Antigua has been quite patient with the games that the US is playing.

In 2004, the WTO agreed and ruled that the US had no right to try to control Antigua-based online casinos. The US promptly ignored the WTO ruling.

A few months later, the WTO did the equivalent of stomping its feet and demanding that the US change its rules, and the US promptly ignored them. Earlier this year, the WTO again sided with Antigua, but since there's been no consequences from ignoring WTO rulings on the matter, the US pretty much shrugged. When pressed, US officials claimed that the US was going to get around the fact that they were breaking treaty obligations by... changing the treaty.

Other countries are lining up to support Antigua, but it doesn't seem likely that it's going to change US policy much. We're still waiting to see if Antigua will follow the suggestions that have gone around to set up free music download sites in Antigua as retaliation, since asking the US to fix things isn't getting it very far.

Antigua should. After all the pressure against Russia through the WTO, you should think that the US considers the decisions of the WTO to be more than just useless words. But no, everything is fine only as long as the WTO works in favor of the US. Now it's time for Antigua to turn things around by setting up free MP3 and movie downloads; that would force the RI/MPAA into action, and we all know that the US gov does what they want.