Republicans move to “clarify” the UIGEA

For months, Barney Frank (D-MA) has been trying to unravel the UIGEA — the law that Bill Frist tacked on to a Port Security bill, which may not have made online gambling illegal, but it sure scared all of the online gambling webmasters offshore.

Now, Pete Sessions (R-TX) has proposed a bill to “clarify” the UGIEA. Source – Pokerlistings.com.

The bill seeks to limit the definition of illegal online gambling to sports betting, which is illegal in 49 out of 50 U.S. states. Language in the bill also points out that the ambiguity in the definition of illegal online gambling has caused legitimate companies to leave the U.S. online gambling market and made it impossible to implement the UIGEA.

In Anti-Gambling Craze, First Amendment is Collateral Damage

We (okay, I) usually think of the uneducated red states as the anti-freedom bloc. But, the Blue states are doing their part to make sure that Dixie and Utah aren’t the only places where personal liberty is no longer a right. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick is working on a nanny state anti-gambling law. That one particularly galls me as a native Masshole.

But Washington (the state, not the slum) has taken the lead in stomping on the First Amendment in its zeal to prohibit online gambling.

According to this editorial, a man in Bellingham, WA launched a website about gambling. Mind you, there was no gambling on the website, but state officials still said that the site was illegal.

It’s what the feds would call ‘aiding and abetting,’ ” says the director of the state’s gambling commission, Rick Day. “Telling people how to gamble online, where to do it, giving a link to it — that’s all obviously enabling something that is illegal.” (source)

Looks like Deborah Taylor Tate is going to have to share her ass-hat of the week award with Rick Day.

US bans online gambling, Antigua strikes back

Back a few years ago, in an attempt to pander to the Religious Right — the “conservatives” who want to make government so small that it can fit under your bedroom door, and into your brain — Bill Frist jammed through a ban on online gambling. He was smart enough to attach it to a port security bill. Smart move. If anyone dared to vote against the bill, they were voting to “make America unsafe.”

Well Bill and your inbred idiot supporters, the chickenhawks have come home to roost.

The tiny nation of Antigua, which garners much of its operating revenue from issuing online gambling licenses, challenged the US before the WTO. You see, ol’ Fristy knew better than to make off-track-betting illegal. That discriminatory trade practice gave Antigua the ability to open up a little Caribbean whup ass.

The result?

According to the WTO, American copyright laws no longer apply in Antigua.

Nice job Bill. How’s that presidential campaign coming?

Source

Massachusetts Proposes Nanny-State Online Gambling Law

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has proposed a new law to make criminals out of citizens who place bets online. (source) What makes this proposed law suspect to me is that it is buried deep within proposed legislation that would legalize land-based casinos in the Bay State.

Bodog loses its domain name

Due to, well, just really REALLY stupid litigation strategy (as in not showing up at all), one of the best known online gambling websites, Bodog, no longer owns its own domain name.

Back in September 2006, 1st Technology filed a infringement suit against Bodog for unlawfully using its patented “method and system for interactively transmitting multimedia information over a network which requires a reduced bandwidth.” I have not fully reviewed the complaint or the file, so I cannot comment upon the validity of the underlying lawsuit. I am not a patent expert anyhow, so I would not feel qualified to evaluate the patent claim. Nevertheless, I am a litigator, and I can tell you that Bodog’s litigation strategy, which was … (wait, lemme review the file) … oh yeah, failing to even show up was not well advised.

The judge awarded the plaintiff nearly $49 Million in a default judgment, and then gave Bodog’s famous domain name, bodog.com to the plaintiff. The plaintiff now gets to keep or sell the domain name.

This of course begs the question, what the hell are they going to do with it? Bodog still has a valid trademark for BODOG. How can anyone else use the bodog.com domain name and not stand exposed to an ACPA suit?

Ron Paul on the UIGEA

Another reason to like Ron Paul. I can’t say that I throw in 100% with his economic policies, but I can’t say that they would keep me from voting for him. His libertarian views on social issues are what makes him my Republican candidate of choice. His statements today about online gambling demonstrate that this is the kind of guy you can trust with authoritah.

Government Sanctioned Copyright Infringement?

Lawrence Walters reports on this at Adult Industry Update:

A little-known dispute between the island nation of Antigua and the United States may turn into a major headache for media companies, including those in the adult entertainment industry. Specifically, Antigua is threatening to withdraw its agreement to protect United States copyright and other intellectual property rights, as a result of the United States’ refusal to honor a World Trade Organization (“WTO”) ruling, finding it in non-compliance with the 1994 General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS).

To read the whole article, click here.

Also published here.