Is Buying Cuban Software Legal In the US? The Answer is Hazy (blogspot.com) 75
lpress writes: The Treasury Department recently issued new regulations authorizing "the importation of Cuban-origin mobile applications and the employment of Cuban nationals by persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction to develop such mobile applications." Great, but that is ambiguous, so I asked Treasury some follow-up questions: why is the rule restricted to mobile apps, what is the definition of a mobile app and can the Cuban developer work for a Cuban cooperative or government enterprise or must it be an individual? The answers were mostly "no comment" so the best way to clarify the situation is to try it and see what happens.
Cuban software?? (Score:1, Funny)
ahahahahahahHAHAHAAHAAHA
I would rather have a Cuban sandwich. (Score:2)
I would rather have a Cuban sandwich. They are delicious.
Re: (Score:1)
I would imagine the meat would be tougher than an sandwich made with Americans.
The embargo is stale. (Score:2)
I think that the embargo is stale - and that Cuba actually would be hurt a lot more today if it was suddenly lifted.
Re:The embargo is stale. (Score:5, Insightful)
This embargo is what caused the US to seize $26,000 being transferred by a Danish businessman in Denmark to his German suppliers bank in Germany as payment for Cuban cigars, because it violated the US embargo on Cuba.
It also threw into question the power the US has over the SWIFT system and its ability to interfere in transactions between two third parties.
http://cphpost.dk/news14/inter... [cphpost.dk]
http://www.b.dk/nationalt/dans... [b.dk]
Re: (Score:2)
Then maybe he should have payed in Euros.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, first of all the original currency used was Euros, and second of all even the issuer of a currency doesnt get to decree what happens between two people on another continent, regardless of what currency they do use. Its a private transaction that doesnt involve you.
Re: (Score:2)
IIRC the currency, albeit digital, crossed US soil by way of a US exchange or bank. Thus, the idiots that they are, the .gov felt it had a right to seize those assets. While this should be well known and is, fairly well, codified into law - it's still a shitty practice but it should be known about and avoided at all costs when attempting to do something like buying Cuban cigars.
I'm not a fan of the embargo, never have been. I've been to Cuba twice and enjoyed it both times though the second time I was lied
Re:Free market (Score:5, Insightful)
It always used to crack me up back in the day how Americans used to brag about how one of the big advantages to FREE America was that citizens could travel anywhere (as opposed to the evil USSR).
"Oh yeah? Try traveling to Cuba then, Captain Freedom"
Re: (Score:2)
Once I circled the US. Prolly 6000 miles or so. I never had to show my papers. I moved to different cities and states in my life. Never had to get approval.
Works for me.
Bullshit (Score:2)
Same thing in Russia, traveling within the confined space of a single nation has never been a problem.
It's a problem in Russia. Russian citizen can't travel within Russia without having to show his internal passport everywhere. Train tickets for example, you can't buy them without showing your passport. Air tickets. Police checking documents. Hotels. Everywhere. Recently Duma (law making "rabid printer") wanted to enforce passport control even for buying inter-city bus tickets!
And if you fail to show your passport to cops they detain you "until they find out your identity". A few months ago I went to po
Re: (Score:2)
You can buy train and air tickets in the U.S. without showing identification? And cops never ask for identification in the U.S., or detain criminals who refuse to show identification?
Wow, I didn't know that. Thanks for educating me! My ignorant friends insisted that you had to show identification for all sorts of things in the U.S. and that you weren't even allowed to drive without a state-granted license there. I need to let them know that burbilog said that you can travel freely in the U.S. and never once
Re: (Score:2)
I need to let them know that burbilog said that you can travel freely in the U.S. and never once have to break out any sort of ID, not for tickets or cops of for anything else. Land of the free indeed!
These are YOUR words, your fantasy, not mine. I did not write anything about U.S.
Embargo (Score:2)
That silly embargo is still active?
Sheesh, you'd think they'd be over the hole sugar thing by now.
Re: (Score:3)
That silly embargo is still active?
Sheesh, you'd think they'd be over the hole sugar thing by now.
Lesson learned today: Don't Google search that product category while at work.
Re: (Score:3)
Having a hole in your sugar is something that can cause a long-term grudge. This ain't over.
Re: (Score:3)
I knew it'd happen the moment I pressed submit and noticed my typo.
I shall take my punishment in appropiate ridicules.
Yes, that's quantifiable.
Re: (Score:2)
Never had anything to with sugar or economics. It was because a) Cuba was an enemy state 90 miles off the coast and b) the Cuban emigres hated Castro and were a powerful voting bloc. After the Soviet Union fell, it was more about B than A.
Now that communism is good and dead and President Castro the Second is in office, we can start dealing again.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I'm sure that was involved in the original blockade, and may even be the basic reason, but I'm also rather certain that isn't why the blockade was maintained.
Re: (Score:2)
Sugar wasn't involved in the embargo itself. What happened at one point is that Eisenhower refused to accept an order of sugar from Cuba and didn't export oil to Cuba, but that was a one time thing in the run-up of hostilities and happened before the Kennedy embargo.
The embargo was purely based on the Cold War and maintained by the Cuban immigrants. Many US businesses have been eager to get back into Cuba, maybe not all of them, but they're not really a factor.
That's why Obama was able to move. No busine
Re: (Score:2)
It's easier to get to Cuba for a quick meeting than, say, India.
Re: (Score:2)
Set up a design center in India and hire good engineers and you will benefit from the skills the country has to offer. We did.
Umm, not even remotely hazy (Score:2)
It doesn't count as stonewalling to offer no response to "have you stopped beating your wife yet?".
Mobile "apps" and the rise of the toy computer (Score:2, Troll)
try it and see (Score:3)
The best thing to do when the consequences are multiple huntreds of thousands of dollars, or more, in fines and jail time is to NEVER try it and see unless you have a good idea on what would happen.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually that's a sound advice if read as it should: "You try it and see. We'll wait."
Re: (Score:1)
The best thing to do when the consequences are multiple huntreds of thousands of dollars, or more, in fines and jail time is to NEVER try it and see unless you have a good idea on what would happen.
Any person should be able to ask if a particular action is legal w.r.t. a particular law, beforehand, and be given a straight answer.
If the government says, "I don't know", then the assumption should be that it is legal, and proceed on that. If government wants to change its mind, Ok, it can clarify, but cannot retroactively punish someone for a previous "I don't know".
That gives government more power than the Constitution authorizes.
Re: (Score:2)
While I agree with what you say in the first sentence, the second sentence does not follow. The third sentence is correct.
The thing is, the government ignores the constitution that authorizes it to have any power at all, and gets away with it because of "force majeure", or, if you prefer, "force majeure" (refering back to Norman conquest occupation policies). This is clearly not authorized by the constitution, but it's also pretty plainly present. They hardly even pretend to justify their action by twist
Re: (Score:3)
The law was put in a Locked filing cabinet, in a disused bathroom, with a sign written on it saying "Beware of the leopard"
Re: (Score:2)
ignorance of the law is no excuse.
It is if you are a corporation. Been there, seen it happen.
One department signs a document promising a regulatory agency "Nope. We don't do that." The next department goes right ahead and does it. An individual would have to claim multiple personality disorder to get away with this. But companies do it all the time.
Re: (Score:2)
Who needs editors?
My sources say no.
What kind of customer would ask this question? (Score:5, Insightful)
Steel drums, sugar, rum, sun and sand, classic cars. These are the things you think of when you think of Cuba. Software? Only one type of customer would ask this question: People with plans to outsource to Cuba.
Re: (Score:1)
If they outsource to India et al, why would not they outsource to Cuba? You are being naive here.
This certainly would be good for cubans making 1 USD/month.
Wait. Cuba's not a worker's paradise?!?!
Re: (Score:2)
How difficult would that make things? They could write the software in Cuba and sell it through a subcontractor in a different country. It's not as if software requires a 'Made in' label, and this has been done in the past on the very small-scale, quite lucratively [bbc.com].
"the best way to clarify the situation is to try" (Score:2)
You first.
What about the apple app store cut / payout system (Score:2)
What about the apple app store cut / payout system how does that fit in this.
Recycling at it's best (Score:2)
But really, who'd want to buy new software made out of refurbished bits and parts of old cold war -era Cobol and Ada source code hacked together with with Bondo compilers and chicken wire linkers?
That's the wrong way to approach a government (Score:2)
You asked them to clarify a definition. The government rarely comments on such matters. Now you're left with a completely ambiguous legal interpretation.
Instead ask the question: "I'm doing this, are you okay with it?" The action implies that someone makes a decision on the definition. When the no-comment comes back you can take that as no objection and that is somewhat defensible as it was specific to your case.
I just bought a GPS module (Score:2)
I just bought the dirt-cheapest GPS module around, a uBlox NEO-6M. It shipped from China, as you might imagine. Unlike most other listings, it had an export warning that said I couldn't send it to the Sudan. Hilarious.
Burnware (Score:2)
Because of internet lacking in places, I import my cuban software on tiny memory cards inside cigars.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought my cigar tasted kind of plasticky.
Hm ... as Cuba is in the Caribbean ... (Score:2)
Buying might still be illegal, but pirating it likely is not ... cough ... cough.
The Answer is Hazy (Score:2)
Try Again Later. [wikipedia.org]
How much you want to bet (Score:2)
Which I'm all for btw.