[wplug] What is this World Intellectual Property Concept that RMS is pushing?

[John Harrold]

Sometime in April Zachary Uram assaulted the keyboard and produced:

| I see. If a judgement was found against a plaintif would the damages
| by calculated retroactively to point that suit was first filed? If it
| takes years of legal wrangling I imagine this calculation could
| significantly effect the compensation.

Since we're talking about sovereign countries, it's hard to enforce fines
--- though I believe monthly fines were the threat used by the WTO with respect to
our steel subsidies.  Basically, you can only control what the member
states send to or take from the country in question. So typically tariffs
will be placed on the exports of the offending country. Since the point of
the WTO is to facilitate trade, corrective judgements are issued over
punitive ones. Keep in mind, I'm not an economist, lawyer, etc. so this is
all based on what I've read.

| Ya, I read that we are also trying to exert pressure on Japan to lift
| ban on our beef imports. I think if we agreed to test every animal
| this would placate Canada/Japan. So we don't do this because it is
| cost prohibitive or because the cattle lobby blocks it?

Probably a combination of the two,  a serious concern for the health of
people and a few other things we as normal people wouldn't realize. Foreign
policy decisions are not nearly as cut and dry as some would present them.
Most don't come down to this "evil" person or that "evil" person. They are
typically driven by the economics of the decision. Now weather a leader is
doing something because it is economically more favorable to his or her
country in general or for a small set of special interests is always up for
debate.

-- 
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