US Lists Ukraine as a “Priority Foreign Country” for Trade Sanctions | Hacker News Reader

US Lists Ukraine as a “Priority Foreign Country” for Trade Sanctions

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55 pointsDiabloD329 comments

The US consistently donates $100 Million + to Ukraine in foreign aid per year. The notion of "Well they're not following copyright law so we're going to sanction them" is absurd; nobody follows US copyright law. Not even the US.

You can still get a lot of bullying mileage out of a law nobody is even intended to follow.

I expected this to be about an http redirect...

TL;DR anyone?

Came here hoping the comments could do a better job explaining what I just read.

Got a lot of "The Ukraine"s instead. It's not the Ukraine, it's just Ukraine.

TL;DR: The US Government is in Hollywood's back pocket. The Ukraine has been identified as a major source of music and movie piracy.

"The Special 301 report identifies some of the key foreign threats to America's copyright industries," said MPAA chairman and CEO Chris Dodd:

http://www.screendaily.com/news/distribution/ukraine-on-pira...

also noteworthy is the US is doing this unilaterally rather than go through the WTO, which is probably against WTO rules and possibly US law as well. This is the first time US has threatened a WTO member (while they are actually a member).

The WTO issued sanctions against the US for it's handling of foreign online casinos[1]. Did they ever honour those sanctions and pay up? I'm guessing not. That's probably against US law too.

[1] http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds285_e....

Can we also say that the Ukrainian government is in piracy's back pocket, then? Or do you believe that the 301 report has incorrectly identified the Ukraine?

There is a major difference. The Ukrainian government does not do anything about the piracy. In theory it might be because gov is in piracy's pocket, but most likely they just don't care. It requires inaction from them, which is usually not very hard. However, the US government does stuff based on hollywood complaints. To be honest, circumventing WTO rules aside, the USTR is simply enforcing the law that was passed by the congress, so the congress sits in the pocket of Hollywood, not the USTR, if there is any link.

So what you're saying is that if a government agency decides to look the other way when a crime is being committed, they're not in the pocket of the criminals? Like if someone robs a bank, but the police decide not to do anything? So looking the other way is "neutral"?

Is providing "pirated" movies and music even a crime in Ukraine?

Only if it is politically motivated. Usually, police takes money and get out.

The police in USA certainly look the other way when a bank in Ukraine is robbed. I think even if I called and reported an in-progress bank robbery in Ukraine, they would tell me it's not their jurisdiction.

That's not a good analogy. The 'crime' being committed here is actually being committed in the Ukraine. It's a question of whose laws are broken, and who should care. The US doesn't punish its citizens if they break the UK's strict defamation laws.

So, whether or not a piracy is a crime really does depend on both mindset and jurisdiction. US is one of the few places where you can make rules however you like and people will obey it, however little sense it makes. The laws in africa for example merely reflect what people think makes sense or does not make sense - if there is a law that does not make sense, people will happily ignore it, including the police. A good example is jaywalking - you can't potentially get fined for jaywalking in many places, despite it being a crime.

While you might or might not agree - this is a reality. I doubt movie piracy is considered a crime in Ukraine, whether you like it or not. That means people will do nothing, including the government. There is no such need as putting gov into someone's pocket - it's merely not considered worth bothering. In this sense Ukrainian government is neutral, they just don't do shit and reflect the general view on piracy expressed by the majority of the population. Whether it's an actual crime, is really very very irrelevant.

Ukraine is extremely corrupt and plenty of people pirate in the US. The only issue is who is profiting from other peoples work. If you make money from other peoples work you will be rightly smacked down in non-disfunctional states, that is not controversial.

So... If I jaywalk, and a LE officer doesn't give me a ticket, he's in "jaywalking's pocket?" That doesn't make sense.

China you're next! lol just kidding.

TL;DR: it's not directly mentioned in the linked article but it looks like the United States is pissed at http://www.ex.ua/ for media piracy [1].

A little background: Ex.ua is a combined direct-download file hosting service, search engine and torrent tracker that's positively huge in CIS countries. Unlike private torrent trackers to which it can be compared in terms of quality and quantity of pirated content Ex.ua does not have an invite system and the company that owns it is fairly public about its activity up to and including officially sponsoring numerous music events and even charity.

For an interesting look into a kind of a "parallel web" I'd suggest that you get a Ukrainian proxy (and translation software, should you need it) and browse the website yourself for a while but here is a sample search for "star wars 1080p": [2]. Locally you should be able to download at over 100 Mbps given sufficient bandwidth at your end thanks to the Ukrainian Internet exchange point (UA-IX) but from most other countries it's not only considerably slower but also only partially accessible. Just how much you can access depends on your IP's geolocation.

[1] http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2013/2013SPEC301UKRAINE.PDF

[2] http://htmlpaste.com/16d34b5749f5a990fc7c66dfad6e650fa1de476... (this is just the first 100 results of an undisclosed total)

so again, what's so wrong about staying at home vs. making new enemies all over the world all the time? What about Ron Paul policy? Get out of the rest of the world and focus on the economy at home.

We're too broke to afford more enemies.

USA consumes too many resources from the world. Something between 24 and 30 percent, depending on the category, while making up only 5 percent of the world's population. As other countries want to raise their share, and the USA wants to keep the status quo... conflicts arise.

That's why the US Government can't just "stay at home vs. making new enemies all over the world all the time?".

Imagine for a moment what would happen if they just stayed at home...

The simplified version:

- US industries would have much less resources for production. Imagine a drop from 30% of wold's energy consumption, to 20% - 15%. Power shortages, industries closed.

- Prices on raw materials, would raise, because other countries would demand to increase their share. (More demand -> higher prices).

- Local prices would raise even more (lower production -> higher prices).

- The economy would enter in a deep contraction and depression.

- Large layoffs would be common. Unemployment would reach new heights within the country.

- Social discontent would be too dangerous in a heavily armed country.

- Protests and more protests, demonstrations with large numbers of people claiming for actions.

- Police is ordered to suppress the demonstrations. Violence emerge. Sooner or later, a protester dies, unleashing more fury among the people.

- Larger and more radicalized demonstrations are organized.

- Eventually, the government falls (as happened in many other countries in the last few years).

That's why US troops can't just stay at home and grow flowers. Sadly for the rest of the world, changing the status quo will take a long time. And it's not something possible to do in just a few years. Any attempt in doing a drastic change would end up in violence and possibly war if done by a foreign entity.

So, sadly, more hate to the US Government will keep extending around other countries for a few more decades.

The US is one of the most energy efficient economies in the world. The US consumes a lot of resources because it still produces so much of the world's GDP. And we're constantly inventing new resources and better ways to extract them-- we're moving towards being a net exporter in some energy categories, and we feed much of the world.

> The US consumes a lot of resources because it still produces so much of the world's GDP.

80% of US GDP is "services", not a real production.

Why do troops overseas equate to trade balance?

Is the implicit threat of military action really the only thing keeping the rest of the world from closing their borders to US trade?

So we have one story on HN about how shipping containers created more commerce than all the free trade treaties combined.

Another story, about the use of the Special 301 provisions, is a wall of text written by a law professor, about the U.S. relationship with one country, full of nuance, complexity, and consultant weasel words.

Wish I had something more to say about the import of these stories, but as a news consumer and voter I can certainly observe that one story is much easier to understand, digest, and put to immediate use than the other. I understand that capitalism's relentless drive to make transactions more efficient have done more than complex governmental structures. Might not agree with it, but I understand it. The author reached me with his message. The other story? Not so much.

Perhaps a better hook might have worked. Something to draw me in. I'm left both not understanding the story (except in general terms) and not knowing why it might be important.

I can't spend 30 minutes digesting the special circumstances of Ukranian trade. Not without something more than this. If you need any more proof of the problem here, just take a look at the comment thread.

Possibly you should work harder to understand the world rather than expect the world to conform to your ignorance.

Lotta things to learn in the world. An author and publisher's job is first to explain relevance, then communicate.

This didn't happen. Blaming the reader for poor workmanship isn't very productive.

You know, I complained about relevance and understanding. Pointing those out would have been greatly appreciated. Like many others, I came here expecting something on HTTP response codes.

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