Comments on: IP Imperialism (Russia, Intellectual Property , and the WTO)

By: guy eames

guy eames — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 18:07:59 +0000

There is still hope that Russia will respect IP laws – last week they decided to end the long stand-off over pirated Microsoft software in schools and opted for linux: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7034828.stm

By: TGGP

TGGP — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 18:46:56 +0000

Imagine how many would have died if the Soviet Union had not applied its laws arbitrarily!

By: averros

averros — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 16:11:05 +0000

Russians have a fine tradition of ignoring the laws.

The leading 19th century Russian satirist, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, famously noted that “the severity of the Russian laws is mitigated only by the arbitrariness of their application”.

I can confidently predict that adoption of US “IP regime” by the RF government will have no effect on the circulation of unlicensed copies whatsoever.

By: Stefan Karlsson

Stefan Karlsson — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:46:21 +0000

In a partly related issue, it might interest some here that the election results in Sweden is now out.
And the single-issue anti-IP party Piratpartiet got 34918 votes or 0.63% of the total, making it the third biggest party not represented in the Swedish parliament, after Sverigedemokraterna (a “far right” nationalist anti-immigration party) who got 2.93% and Feministiskt initiativ (a extreme feminist group) who got 0.68%. (The threshold for entering the parliament is 4%.)

http://www.val.se/val/val2006/slutlig/R/rike/ovriga.html

The one libertarian party, Klassiskt Liberala Partiet, fared far worse, receiving a pathetic 202 votes or 0.004%.