US Seeks Extradition For UK Student's Copyright Violation

[Earnest Cavalli]

US Seeks Extradition For UK Student's Copyright Violation

Officials from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have petitioned the UK to extradite a 23-year-old student for linking to illegal torrents.

Richard O'Dwyer, the 23-year-old in question, is a student at Sheffield Hallam University. He studies computer science. In his free time he built a website called TV Shack whose purpose was cataloging and linking to "thousands of movies and TV shows from around the web."

Did I mention that all of O'Dwyer's links were pointed at illegal streams and torrents? They were. Also, O'Dwyer was pulling down ad revenue from the site, because if you're going to break the law, you might as well make some scratch in the process, right?

As a result, US government officials have seized the site (replacing it with a very official warning against copyright violation [http://tvshack.net/index.html]) and want the UK to ship the kid across the Atlantic so he can stand trial for his crimes in The States. If UK officials comply with the request, O'Dwyer faces up to 5 years in prison here in the Land of the Free.

As geek.com points out, though O'Dwyer is being charged with copyright infringement, he didn't actually infringe on anything. "His crime is linking to such content and therefore advertising it exists, he did not illegally copy and distribute the content himself."

O'Dwyer is currently out of jail on a £3,000 ($4855 USD) bail, though will return to court on September 12.

The most interesting piece of this entire case is what it says about how intent the US government is to punish copyright violators. Extradition is the sort of thing you normally hear in regards to terrorists, murderers on the run and international drug lords, not CompSci students earning (likely paltry) cash linking to a torrent of the latest episode of Game of Thrones.

A discussion of the ethical and legal issues in play here is beyond the scope of this article (read: feel free to side with or condemn O'Dwyer in the comments), but I will add that if the extradition request is approved, the ghost of Pablo Escobar is going to be laughing for millennia.

Source: Geek.com [http://www.geek.com/articles/news/us-demands-uk-student-extradition-to-face-copyright-infringement-charges-20110617/]

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[Worgen]

this is going to turn out to be one of those cases that makes or breaks more then a few weird kind of laws, assuming we get him

 

[olliefrom1990]

More of the USA trying to stick their nose in where it does not belong, and using the unfair a one way extradition act they have with us.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

I am so glad our government has its priorities set straight. After all, wasting time, money, and other resources on persecuting an international student via extradition is just what we need when we are almost bankrupt.

'course it's wrong to blatantly advertise torrents of movies and such! Nobody is going to say otherwise, or rather, nobody should say otherwise. My problem is simply with the method in which it is persecuted. Extradition for something so trivial? Shit, back in the day you had to shoot somebody before the feds wanted you that badly. Seriously, fuck the RIAA and whoever else lobbied for such austere punishments!

 

[Spartan448]

The United States has stepped out of its bounds for far too long. This is an international tiral, and he was found in England, so there's no reason for him to be tried in the States. The world at large needs to start taking a stand and saying that America can't always make itself the center of every single thing. World resistance to the United States will start when England refuses to extradite a criminal to another country without any legal basis.

 

[teebeeohh]

really? the next thing we know people are getting extradited to the US for speeding.

if the guy committed a crime in the UK prosecute him there but you don't extradite people for piracy.
Also give us European people a good(payed) online streaming service like you nice american people have and and we will pay for that stuff.

 

[Sevre]

Could it be that the US is using this as a test case for extradition? Not to undermine the prosecution but I feel that this goes beyond copyright infringement laws to see what they can get away with in the UK.

As geek.com pointed out, he didn't actually infringe copyright and the prosecution knows this(unless they're idiots,which they could be), but they still want to see if they can extradite him and stick him in front of an American judge.

 

[unacomn]

TV Shack didn't link to any torrents, it did link to iTunes and Amazon, which was bad enough. Also, the links were added by contributors. The owners of the sites where the content was stored should be the ones held liable. Megavideo comes to mind... also youtube.

 

[Adrian Murphy]

Its called contributory infringement of a copyright. Where O'Dwyer 1) had knowledge of another's infringement (both the downloaders and the uploaders) and (2) either (a) materially contributes to (by listing the torrents on a site for public consumption) or (b) induces that infringement. (it can be argued that by advertising the torrents on his site, he induced illegal downloaders to come and download the torrent to download the copywritten files)

 

[Booze Zombie]

I'm afraid I don't agree with this, he shouldn't be extradited should America can play internet police.

Solve media phrase: I'm sorry Dave

 

[Chappy]

So if the student is in England and the violation is 'accross the internet' not generally America the why does the US feel that it is there right to charge him in their courts instead of say in the court of the country he is already in.

I may have missed something but I don't like that situation if it's the way I interpretated.

 

[rees263]

I won't pretend to be an expert on the law, but I do have some questions about this, if anyone can answer them?

Obviously the US is trying to charge this guy with something, but is what he did illegal in the UK? What are the factors that could result in an extradition? And if it is illegal in the UK, wouldn't that mean he should be tried in the UK courts?

 

[fix-the-spade]

Interesting, but I can't see UK courts granting extradition for a case that could be brought in the UK as a civil charge. The owners of the copyright should be suing him, since copyright infringement is a civil matter in the UK (until you ignore a court order...). I hope to God I'm right.

The idea of Americaland gaining the legal right to enforce it's laws on British soil remotely is, frankly, terrifying.

 

[Arcanist]

So, my government is wasting time, money, and reputation attempting to extradite a non-citizen for... putting up links to torrent sites?

Fantastic.

 

[TheEvilCheese]

I am so glad our government has its priorities set straight. After all, wasting time, money, and other resources on persecuting an international student via extradition is just what we need when we are almost bankrupt.

according to http://www.usdebtclock.org/ you have $55,000,000,000,000 of debt as a country. That's about $175,000 per person. I fail to understand how the world works sometimes.

OT: just plain silly. He wasn't actually doing anything except advertising said copyright infringement and extradition seems ludicrous. Silly lobbying groups not realising that clever people will always be able to get what they want for free.

 

[Truly-A-Lie]

As someone who's used websites similar to that, I have one thing to say. Maybe, if we in the UK didn't have to wait until we were like 2 seasons behind to get certain shows, we wouldn't need illegal streams. The internet is a cruel, spoiler filled place when it comes to TV, and when you're eagerly awaiting Burn Notice season 4 to start while the internet discusses season 5, it can be all too tempting to just go ahead and stream it.
It's getting better with Sky Atlantic, and Alibi's masterful decision to show Castle season 2 and 3 back to back to help us catch up, but the problem is still there. And websites like this are only successful because of it.

 

[The Youth Counselor]

The governments probably spent a hundred times more already by going after him than all vitual "losses."

 

[RA92]

Next, the feds hunt down millions of YouTube users.