British Student Loses Extradition Battle Over Copyright Violation

[Scars Unseen]

Go to Google. Type "filetype:torrent" plus whatever you are looking for. Congratulations, Google is now potentially doing the same thing this guy is. Only they're actually in the US. This case is bullshit. The extradition is even more bullshit. I hope all the people involved in making it happen suffer eternal malware infestation and identity theft.

 

[willsham45]

All i can think of saying is BASTARDS. surly .com is not exculsivly american for them to exploite. What benifit does it emply, i am sure the cost of all of this is stupidly high to the point you could call it pointless.

If you do something, anything even your thoughts are not oh no i should not do this it is elegal in (insert country name here).

That would be like me walking across the road and being charged for J walking cause that is the law in the states, not in the uk we are not stupid.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Before all the "America is policing the world" comments come in, just remember britian could have told us to fuck off, but they chose not to. You can only police the world when the world lets you.

Hi, England here. Fuck off.

That good for ya?

Seriously though, it's not like we were given a vote on this, Cameron is a little ***** and our judicial system is even worse, we get to watch as someone from our country doing something which is ENTIRELY LEGAL gets extradited for what is a crime in another country? Well fuck USA, that seems fair doesn't it?

Fucking pricks whoever ordered the extradition and I'm seriously disgusted that our government is letting this happen. If the trial isn't a fucking laughing stock I'm gonna get seriously pissed.

Eh, I can take it. Now go give your politicians to give ours the message. Since your country's politics are SO much better than ours.

or like I siad, tell the un to get on its job. the Us (and what China is trying to do) is pretty much exactly why it was made and formed.

 

[GonvilleBromhead]

The reason why he's being extradited to the US rather than facing trial in the UK is rather simple - his lawyers had claimed that due to the .com he was not eligible to be prosecuted in the UK.

Hoisted on his own petard, I say

 

[Woodsey]

Ignoring none of this being committed on anything to do with the US (apart from the .com suffix, which is just stupid), doesn't Google do the exact same thing? Along with every other search engine? I mean, guess what happens if I type in "*GAME NAME* torrent" and click search.

 

[TheScottishFella]

"Hey Gordon if you see USA tell them fuck you!"

Seriously though, this is cruel just because you have a .com prefix you can come under the states jurisdiction? This and SOPA are excellent points of the US trying to police the world. I don't have anything against the fine citizens of the US just their government.

 

[nathan-dts]

I hate the US...

 

[JesterRaiin]

- How to visit the USA without any documents, visas and stuff ?
Host a torrent site.

 

[jklinders]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the sheer ignorance of the "You can't be charged with a crime unless you committed it in that particular country."
Seriously has no one heard of international copyright agreements and copyright infringement laws? You know the ones where a bunch of countries came together and agreed to uphold the other's copyrights?
But if you think otherwise I invite you to start mass producing your own iPads and selling them in your respective nation; because well they're and American company so screw them right?
Seriously this isn't a question of America playing freaking world police, its a case of the guy broke in one country's mind some copyright violations, the country he is located in is like well we don't really have an answer to trial this guy. But according to agreements the other country has the legal right to go after the guy; thus the country (UK) allowing the guy to be extradited.
If you have a problem with this then go to your government and petition them to abolish the trade agreements (hint no one is going to take you seriously).

Seriously, this guy made a profit over someone else's work; seriously 15k a month and the site was up for how long? And the people suing him are doing it according to the law and yet its a case of screw the victim?

I'm curious if this is just another case of bash America because you can, if this took place between two other countries everyone would probably be like, eh whatever. But omg it is the USA the devil of the world who is oppressing us every second of our lives!!!

I got crapped on in a different thread for suggesting the same as you. These copyright agreements have been around since before the internet. Just dropping this line to say I'm in your corner before the feces gets dumped on you as well.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Yeah, not to offend anybody, but right now, britains abit higher on the totem pole than Spain. Spain is looking to go the way of greece and has never really been know for its great stability and ability to roll with the big boys. I would think Britain could put a foot down, but if they choose not to, then thats their problem and says more about that country than the one trying to "police the world".

which if you read the thread you'd see I said the same thing.

I saw where you were coming from with your first post fella; namely that the UK shouldn't have just rolled over and given in. And maybe we shouldn't have. What I was trying to imply with my post is that we probably didn't just roll over - that there was an "or else" tagged onto the end of the US request for extradition. Hence the Spain, Sweden and Holland news stories.

I fully agree that if we had a choice we should have stuck up for one of our own. The point I was raising was: were we given a choice?

I have yet to see. Now, I will agree with you, waht the US did to spain was... going too far. But spain is just one of those countries that needs help, just because they dont seem... stable.

If it comes out the US did try to do something the same way it did to spain, my opinion will likely change. Honestly, I do get tired of the US doing this, but really, we're in a position to, and no one is really stopping us from it. Any country of power does when they have power. Spain did it, Britain did it (and for the longest time too), france to an extent, and after the US loses its dominance to china china will do it too. Its how the world works.

The Spanish, French and British empires imposed their laws on their subject provinces and imposed economic sanctions against their enemies - the question is which of those two does the US see us? /joke

What I mean is the US seems to be going about pretty heavy-handed with countries they're supposed to have good relations with. We're on your side, cut us some slack.

 

[Bloodstain]

Go away, US. Not your servers, nor your country. Back off.

Any domain ending in .com or .net falls under US rights? That's ridiculous.

 

[Starke]

Just because there is an international treaty or agreement does not extend jurisdiction for countries that are a party to it. Just because both the countries involved have agreed to a IP treaty doesn't mean that the one country has jurisdiction to prosecute all infractions of the agreement everywhere in the world. Not to mention the fact that I doubt the UK is a party to a treaty that makes what he has done illegal, otherwise there would be English law against it, and UK authorities would be prosecuting him.

The UK has an extradition treaty with the US, that's what's being used.

You're responding to the wrong poster. I actually understand this. I talked about this already. If you can't understand that, then that's your problem. If terms like "personal jurisdiction" vs. "subject matter jurisdiction" confuse you, that's really not my problem. If the concept of "extradition treaties" start to sound a lot like "intellectual property treaties", then I really can't help you. If the words "fucking weird" mean nothing to you, then, I'm sorry, but that one's up to you to figure out.

 

[Starke]

I mean, guess what happens if I type in "*GAME NAME* torrent" and click search.

Men in Black kick in your door, and start babbling about the "quantum convergence of ethics," or asking if you have any chocolate Twinkies?

 

[emeraldrafael]

...

The Spanish, French and British empires imposed their laws on their subject provinces and imposed economic sanctions against their enemies - the question is which of those two does the US see us? /joke

What I mean is the US seems to be going about pretty heavy-handed with countries they're supposed to have good relations with. We're on your side, cut us some slack.

and to think, if only sopa had been been passed

wow.. I cant even think that in good conscious.

Eh, I think we were justa bit emboldened by the whole SOPA thing really. This will probably get thrown out as more people complain and voice their opinions. Or at least im hoping so, but then again i dont care for the Congress in office as a whole right now.

 

[gphjr14]

It is, no really.

In the U.S. a man can rob a house, get injured by the owner, and sue the owner of the house for damages, and get away with it. Even if he doesn't, his case of assault would be seen as a higher case than an attempted robbery, thus delaying his case for well on 10 years, while he COULD be figuring out a way to leave the country or go into hiding.

I've seen videos of convicted rapists being executed by the victims relatives in third world countries, doesn't sound like anything in the US for the past 60+ years. If the US had laws making homosexuality or drug possession punishable by death or caning women caught drinking beer then you'd have an argument. Otherwise you're just overreacting. You can sue for anything in the US, doesn't mean you'll get anything. Not to mention most companies will get you a small (to them at least) sum of cash just to fuck off and quit wasting their time in court.

 

[tangoprime]

Definitely a tricky one. While he is most certainly guilty, I don't think he should be extradited on such a (comparatively) weak basis - "he's never been to the states and TVShack didn't use US servers" should mean he can only be prosecuted by more relevant authorities - would it be that different if he had chosen a different suffix?

On the other hand, being a UK citizen myself, I am almost definitely biased, and the question over where US jurisdiction begins and ends has been going on for a long time. I have also not studied internet law, just a few months on contract and delict/tort (negligence and compensation) law. Going into criminal law next semester, so I may one day have actual authority on what I babble on here!

TVShack didn't use US servers.

Bingo! the crime was committed on the country in which the website was hosted on the server. Not in the US.Any ending domains has no relevance as any organisation/register may have any domains especially .com and .net because there are no restrictions of use.

We all know why this is happening, the UK government doesn't have any balls to stand-up against the US in case it may damage this "special relationship".

If you hide behind legal technicalities to make money out of advertising piracy don't be surprised when the big boys find some other legal technicalities to drop on you from a great height. If you can't do the time don't do the crime.

^ Exactly. He was making ~$46,000 a MONTH benefiting from pirated material. He should be able to afford a good lawyer in the US.

 

[tangoprime]

Is there anything we can do about this? Like raise money to pay his bail or something?

He was making a lot of people's yearly salary PER MONTH benefiting off of pirated material. He can pay his own bleeping legal bills, trust me.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

...

The Spanish, French and British empires imposed their laws on their subject provinces and imposed economic sanctions against their enemies - the question is which of those two does the US see us? /joke

What I mean is the US seems to be going about pretty heavy-handed with countries they're supposed to have good relations with. We're on your side, cut us some slack.

and to think, if only sopa had been been passed

wow.. I cant even think that in good conscious.

Eh, I think we were justa bit emboldened by the whole SOPA thing really. This will probably get thrown out as more people complain and voice their opinions. Or at least im hoping so, but then again i dont care for the Congress in office as a whole right now.

Well fingers crossed for a reasonable resolution fella. Personally for me the real telling point will be how much money is put behind the case for the prosecution.

 

[grigjd3]

I hate to say it, but I think this kid is in serious trouble. Given the track record for courts in the US in regards to these kinds of websites, the extradition might as well have been finding the kid guilty.