Canada Added to U.S. Piracy Watch List
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
we do have a few netflix alternativesSchmidtzkrieg said:
as for watching tv from majour networks, we can watch it if we want just have to go to the CANADIAN network's website and not the american one
as for the topic on hand, yeah it's kinda bad that we actually have USER rights and not just ip holders rights. there's a ton of legal stuff in canada because of taxes and levies that we have that are illegal in other countries because of dumb laws
Actually it was mostly because Batarians are well known as greasy criminal scumbags and apparently so are Canadians. Plus I always liked that guy's smile. Canadians smile that way a lot too, you know. Coincidence?orannis62 said:
(And yes, because BioWare is Canadian.)
first step to annex canada complete
Things I know about you
1. Your reading my? comment
2. Now your saying/thinking thats a stupid fact.
4. You didnt notice that i skipped 3.
5. Your checking it now.
6. Your smiling.
7. Your still reading my comment.
8. You know all you have read is true.
10. You didnt notice that i skipped 9.
11. Your checking it now.
12. You didnt notice there are only 10 facts
ps i added this because i thought it as pretty funny and if you dont like it i am deeply sorry...sorry you dont have a since of humer dont spam me
Things I know about you
1. Your reading my? comment
2. Now your saying/thinking thats a stupid fact.
4. You didnt notice that i skipped 3.
5. Your checking it now.
6. Your smiling.
7. Your still reading my comment.
8. You know all you have read is true.
10. You didnt notice that i skipped 9.
11. Your checking it now.
12. You didnt notice there are only 10 facts
ps i added this because i thought it as pretty funny and if you dont like it i am deeply sorry...sorry you dont have a since of humer dont spam me
While I expect to be ridiculed, you would be surprised how rapidly this might actually turn to military action. Not today of course, and probably not tomorrow, but we're getting there.
See the issue is one of intellectual property rights and games and such are just one aspect of a much larger issue. Personally I don't think Obama and Washington could give a crap about the video game industry, other than by controlling piracy they can more effectively control information (ie make it more difficult for people to bypass censorship by obtaining pirated versions) but it's just a minor point on the information control front at this point so even people viewing that kind of stuff (content, censorship) with alarm don't see it as being a factor.
The overall issue basically comes down to patents. The fact that an American company can spend hundreds of millions of dollars towards researching something like a new drug or chemical, and then see someone with a chemistry set analyze it in China and sell it for half the price of the inventory (who need to make a profit after recouping the dev costs). This leads to a lot of lost tax revenues from trade and such, not to mention the direct loss of goverment dollars if the US was directly helping to sponsor the research.
Copyrights on things like video games, music, etc... have become a side of the issue, albeit a less important one, in the public eye, and by moving on these kinds of things I think the goverment is trying to give a rather unsubtly hint. Immediatly jumping down the throat of Canada about the bigger issues at state is goinng to cause things to get hostile pretty quickly.
The list of nations there seems like a pretty typical modern "rogues gallery" to hear from the US. But then again those nations didn't get there for no reason. China for example is pretty much the king of knock offs. Probably like 90% of their economy has been based on manufacturing and selling technology from the rest of the world without the right to do so.
Obama can get your attention by talking about video game piracy because we all understand that (or most people do). The gaming and music industries have been whining for a decade. It works better than say going on about how China analyzed "Viagra" and has been selling black market boner pills internationally. However in the end that't the kind of thing that it's all about because it represents billions of dollars that should have been making their way into the US economy and coffers.
The bottom line is that Canada has been a pretty bad offender when it comes to piracy. Pretty much taking a F@ck american attitude, figuring that we're rich enough so nobody is being hurt by us being robbed. Well yeah, it is having a lot of effects.
Even when dealing with electronics, where are a lot of those mod chips and bootleg copies of games coming from? (not talking about games you DL online here) China. Who sees the profit? China. Whose building up a huge military and putting economic leverage on the US and it's allies? China. When you look at all of the stuff they steal cumulatively, it's pretty obvious why they are referred to as many as a robber economy.
Nations like Russia, India, etc... are either big consumers of bootleg products (steal from the west to enrich ourselves!) or producers.
Canada pretty much seems to take the attitude that it wants it's cheap products and doesn't care if it costs their ally (the US) a ton of cash (both privatly and goverentlly). They'll take their bootleg electronics, drugs, etc... for a fraction of the price the inventors want and be happy about it. Well, it's becoming a bigger issue as time goes on.
Also keep in mind that Dubbya and some other western nations (mostly European) took this kind of thing before The World Court. Since then the doomsday clock has been ticking. Basically the world court either chooses to uphold international patent laws (it's not as debatable as many people might think) at which point nations like China are going to have to either let their economy tank, and pay huge damages, or go to war. Or they will choose not to an basically declare the world an intellectual property wild west, at which point The Western World (the power of which is based largely on it's ideas and developments) is forced to pull out of any kind of world community and go to war to force a proper order or else we'll all fall. Needless to say no desician has been quick in coming forward, and every delay conceivable on this matter has been put forward, still a ruling is going to be nessicary.
I'm guessing this is pretty much Canada being told to get it into gear before this goes down. In the end if Canada did continue to thumb it's nose at the issue (which is more than what is stated going by the level this is happening at) when the chips fell they would probably be seriously disaplined by the US, which might include a formal annexation in the opening rounds of the conflict. Being allied with Russia and China over something like this (where the sides are falling) is not going to do them any good on our border.
That said I actually expect "little America" to throw a tantrum and pretty much come into the fold making a bit of a show of kicking and screaming before anything serious happens. This isn't moving quickly. That's why it's being presented with like the ESB and over video games. In the end Canada is pretty much an extension of the US, and even if that wasn't true they would frankly be stupid to side with allies on the other side of the world against a superpower on their doorstep, over cheap goods that they will be rendered unable to receive.
Especially seeing as this is more or less an East Vs. West issue, and even a lot of the European powers we have problems with, are more or less on our side when it comes to the patent issues. France, Britan, Germany, Spain, etc... all have a lot to lose (or should I say more to lose) if all of a sudden patents lose any international meaning, and reason to fight to overturn any such ruling. Canada probably wouldn't even maintain any european alliances in such a case.
At any rate, I'm rambling. This is a wild guess on my part. Probably not very well articulated though.
As far as this being like Robin Hood... well, I have mixed opinions when it comes to purely intellectual properties like video games and movies and such. We've discussed that before here, and I'm fairly anti-pirate, though can see some justification there (in general). But really, I think that's just a diplomatic smoke screen covering what this is about especially given the specific list used. That list is doing a *Fairly* good job of setting down the lines being drawn during this patent war. I don't think Russia and India are huge factors in the thinking of those concerned about video games and such because honestly I'm not even sure if a lot of the stuff produced is localized for those countries. Some of it sure, but not enough where I can see them convincing Washington that Indian video game pirates are a big deal because of the huge number of consumers that would otherwise be buying localized copies of games released in their marketplace.... if I really believed Washington would be directly involved in this to the point of dropping Obama's name.
See the issue is one of intellectual property rights and games and such are just one aspect of a much larger issue. Personally I don't think Obama and Washington could give a crap about the video game industry, other than by controlling piracy they can more effectively control information (ie make it more difficult for people to bypass censorship by obtaining pirated versions) but it's just a minor point on the information control front at this point so even people viewing that kind of stuff (content, censorship) with alarm don't see it as being a factor.
The overall issue basically comes down to patents. The fact that an American company can spend hundreds of millions of dollars towards researching something like a new drug or chemical, and then see someone with a chemistry set analyze it in China and sell it for half the price of the inventory (who need to make a profit after recouping the dev costs). This leads to a lot of lost tax revenues from trade and such, not to mention the direct loss of goverment dollars if the US was directly helping to sponsor the research.
Copyrights on things like video games, music, etc... have become a side of the issue, albeit a less important one, in the public eye, and by moving on these kinds of things I think the goverment is trying to give a rather unsubtly hint. Immediatly jumping down the throat of Canada about the bigger issues at state is goinng to cause things to get hostile pretty quickly.
The list of nations there seems like a pretty typical modern "rogues gallery" to hear from the US. But then again those nations didn't get there for no reason. China for example is pretty much the king of knock offs. Probably like 90% of their economy has been based on manufacturing and selling technology from the rest of the world without the right to do so.
Obama can get your attention by talking about video game piracy because we all understand that (or most people do). The gaming and music industries have been whining for a decade. It works better than say going on about how China analyzed "Viagra" and has been selling black market boner pills internationally. However in the end that't the kind of thing that it's all about because it represents billions of dollars that should have been making their way into the US economy and coffers.
The bottom line is that Canada has been a pretty bad offender when it comes to piracy. Pretty much taking a F@ck american attitude, figuring that we're rich enough so nobody is being hurt by us being robbed. Well yeah, it is having a lot of effects.
Even when dealing with electronics, where are a lot of those mod chips and bootleg copies of games coming from? (not talking about games you DL online here) China. Who sees the profit? China. Whose building up a huge military and putting economic leverage on the US and it's allies? China. When you look at all of the stuff they steal cumulatively, it's pretty obvious why they are referred to as many as a robber economy.
Nations like Russia, India, etc... are either big consumers of bootleg products (steal from the west to enrich ourselves!) or producers.
Canada pretty much seems to take the attitude that it wants it's cheap products and doesn't care if it costs their ally (the US) a ton of cash (both privatly and goverentlly). They'll take their bootleg electronics, drugs, etc... for a fraction of the price the inventors want and be happy about it. Well, it's becoming a bigger issue as time goes on.
Also keep in mind that Dubbya and some other western nations (mostly European) took this kind of thing before The World Court. Since then the doomsday clock has been ticking. Basically the world court either chooses to uphold international patent laws (it's not as debatable as many people might think) at which point nations like China are going to have to either let their economy tank, and pay huge damages, or go to war. Or they will choose not to an basically declare the world an intellectual property wild west, at which point The Western World (the power of which is based largely on it's ideas and developments) is forced to pull out of any kind of world community and go to war to force a proper order or else we'll all fall. Needless to say no desician has been quick in coming forward, and every delay conceivable on this matter has been put forward, still a ruling is going to be nessicary.
I'm guessing this is pretty much Canada being told to get it into gear before this goes down. In the end if Canada did continue to thumb it's nose at the issue (which is more than what is stated going by the level this is happening at) when the chips fell they would probably be seriously disaplined by the US, which might include a formal annexation in the opening rounds of the conflict. Being allied with Russia and China over something like this (where the sides are falling) is not going to do them any good on our border.
That said I actually expect "little America" to throw a tantrum and pretty much come into the fold making a bit of a show of kicking and screaming before anything serious happens. This isn't moving quickly. That's why it's being presented with like the ESB and over video games. In the end Canada is pretty much an extension of the US, and even if that wasn't true they would frankly be stupid to side with allies on the other side of the world against a superpower on their doorstep, over cheap goods that they will be rendered unable to receive.
Especially seeing as this is more or less an East Vs. West issue, and even a lot of the European powers we have problems with, are more or less on our side when it comes to the patent issues. France, Britan, Germany, Spain, etc... all have a lot to lose (or should I say more to lose) if all of a sudden patents lose any international meaning, and reason to fight to overturn any such ruling. Canada probably wouldn't even maintain any european alliances in such a case.
At any rate, I'm rambling. This is a wild guess on my part. Probably not very well articulated though.
As far as this being like Robin Hood... well, I have mixed opinions when it comes to purely intellectual properties like video games and movies and such. We've discussed that before here, and I'm fairly anti-pirate, though can see some justification there (in general). But really, I think that's just a diplomatic smoke screen covering what this is about especially given the specific list used. That list is doing a *Fairly* good job of setting down the lines being drawn during this patent war. I don't think Russia and India are huge factors in the thinking of those concerned about video games and such because honestly I'm not even sure if a lot of the stuff produced is localized for those countries. Some of it sure, but not enough where I can see them convincing Washington that Indian video game pirates are a big deal because of the huge number of consumers that would otherwise be buying localized copies of games released in their marketplace.... if I really believed Washington would be directly involved in this to the point of dropping Obama's name.
So the US put everybody who doesn't have the same laws as them on a list as being "bad"? And then they wonder why the rest of the world sees them as arrogant.
Next up: Ivasion plans for every country that doesn't enforce the patriot act and spy on their population in order to put everybody suspected of planning a terrorsist attack on the us in jail but is forced ignore threats to any other country including themselves because that's in violation of basic human rights...
Next up: Ivasion plans for every country that doesn't enforce the patriot act and spy on their population in order to put everybody suspected of planning a terrorsist attack on the us in jail but is forced ignore threats to any other country including themselves because that's in violation of basic human rights...
From my point of view America is like a fat kid who watched the second and thrid Matrix movies and got the idea that he's Agent Smith. now he goes around poking people trying to make them like him. It's annoying as hell and they should stop doing that.
Won't they just contrive a way to use NAFTA to force the Canadians' hands, like what the US (I think it was the Ethyl corporation) did with MMT?
They'll probably throw a lawsuit into the bargain. Happy days for everyone, everyone except everyone who isn't the ESA, of course.
They'll probably throw a lawsuit into the bargain. Happy days for everyone, everyone except everyone who isn't the ESA, of course.