On behalf as a US citizen: pbbbt!.
I've been a long time follower of this site but I've never been particularly compelled to comment about what my favorite Metal Gear Cutscene was or which of Yahtzee insults was the best of the week. There's a lot, A LOT, of let's chat about video game websites on the internet and I saw no great benefit to joining one more but the headslapping behavior displayed in this thread has impelled me to registration.
Before I even start on the specific things people have brought up let me start by saying that illegal recreational software sharing is the LEAST sympathetic of lesser crimes. There's plenty of nuanced, situational lesser crimes in the world where we can conduct deep debates about the spirit of the law vs. the letter or law vs. ethics vs. morals and so forth.
Is it okay to steal a potato to feed you starving family? Is it okay to pee on a street corner if you really, really have to go and nothing's open at 2A.M.? All very nuanced, intellectual questions.
Someone who illegally downloads Skyward Sword or Alvin and The Chipmunks 2: The Squeakwel does not even come remotely near that category. They are bored, listless, entitled children (or, if above the ago of majority, man-babies). There is no necessity in their actions. Their motive is boredom, an inflated sense of self entitlement and "'cause it was easy". If they were denied these downloads these passive, spoiled babies would have to find a slightly less entertaining way to be entertained. No way for anyone to feel sorry for that or anyone who supports their languid, self centered life style. If they're bored, learn to read books. Thrift shops sell them for 50 cents and libraries let people borrow 5 at a time for free.
Now as to why this person was extradited: First, THERE ARE TREATIES IN PLACE TO HANDLE THIS SORT OF THING. The U.S.A. and U.K. have signed several treaties allowing for extradition in cases similar if not exactly like this sort of thing. The second reason THIS GUY IS KIND OF A SCUM BAG. The U.S. doesn't NEED to apply any sort of pressure to get this guy out of the U.K. I mean if you're a judge and some snot nosed script kiddy walks into the courtroom with his Burberry cap and chavwad coat because he was making $15,000 a month for copypasting a few blocks of PERL script which allowed him to profit on the effort of everyone (uploaders, downloaders and especially content creators) you'd try expel him from your country only because the Magna Carta no longer allows you to sentence him to be drawn, quartered and fed to the Scottish (as was the custom for such people long ago.)
As to why the same thing does not happen if we transgress Islamic Decency Laws in Durkadurkastan. First, THERE IS NO SUCH TREATY WITH DURKADURKASTAN. It goes both ways, if we had such a treaty they'd be subject to some sort of our laws/statues/concepts of civil rights and let's face it, they break a lot of them. It would be ridiculous for any such treaty to exist. On the other hand it's good policy to have mutual and open enforcement of intellectual property between the U.K. and U.S.A. If such property laws stopped at the border some British guy could just distribute AMerican made video games willy nilly and Michael Bay could make a Dr. Who movie starring Shia LeBeouf as the Doctor, Mila Kunis as Amy Pond and Chris Tucker as the voice of the TARDIS. Do you really want to take that risk, U.K? Do you really want to force America to use the Michael Bay option? The second reason being DURKADURKASTAN ISN'T A REAL COUNTRY.
As to the reasoning of "He did not actually host the videos, only provided a complete service where they could be cataloged and accessed. You can find similar stuff with Google. Why don't they go after Google?" I'm not really buying that line. Sure, a person could hide a polaroid of a nude ten year old on a book or a half gram of cocaine inside a hollowed out barbie doll and mail it via UPS and if UPS didn't find it would be foolish to charge UPS with trafficking. Google links to a lot of stuff and the majority is processed automatically but excluded manually, similar to UPS which handles a huge volume of stuff every day. If, say, half of UPS's cargo was cocaine filled toys and books brimming with illegal photos there would be an investigation to say the very least. Also, THIS GUY IS KIND OF A SCUM BAG. There's a good chance they're just putting a little pressure on him. He'll fold like a seven-high, turn over his server logs and testify against anyone in the USA if they promise him he won't do a day in a real jail.
In response to stuff in the line of "Doesn't congress know we're in financial crisis? Why are they worrying about software piracy." We all know that the power of congress is in creating legislature, right? YOU CAN'T FIX THINGS BY LEGISLATING HARDER. Congress has already passed many laws regarding the financial situation. Now they will see how those laws pan out using economic data and they will adjust or create more policy to deal with shortcomings of the current policy.
They can't just pass a nonstop stream of laws to deal with the recession until it stops. that would be crazy. "Okay, fellow congressmen, bill 1568999 regarding the implementation of mortgages for real estate in commercial areas has PASSED, good work. Is the recession over yet? No? Really? It's been ten whole seconds! Um... Here's bill 8656294, a .75% reduction on capital gains tax, everyone quickly! PASSED! OH GOD! THE RECESSION ISN'T OVER YET! Does anyone have any more bills? Okay 590278, 408975, and 29756 Subsidized road building in Nebraska, Credit Card Usury Reform and Removing the Last S From The Word Congress Bill To Save on Printer Ink. Passed! Passed! Passed! How can the recession still be here, we legislated at it for a full three minutes now? Okay, I want everyone to grab a sheet of paper and draft a new bill, whatever you have at the end of a minute, we're passing it, no time to debate. We just have to just keep tossing a nonstop stream of legislature ay this recession until it dies!"
Also, PIRACY IS PART OF THE PROBLEM. Not a huge part but a really unregulated part in a growing financial sector. Seriously, movies and software are two of the few products that Americans can still make better than anyone and which we can export competitively. If an illegal download prevents someone from a legitimate buy that is a tiny dent in the GNP, tax base and possibly employment statistics. Now we've been tweaking the economic formula since the country was born and so it's reasonable to say that even if it's not great it's at least, competent and aside from some wildcards (flat tax/all sales tax/ nothing but gold advocates, ect.) we're just fiddling with the knobs.
Illegal downloading OTOH is a phenomenon only a few decades old and which has statistically been a petty loss until recently. The laws covering it are crude and ill suited. There's CLEAR room for improvement. Not saying SOPA is a good idea, it's not well defined, but congress is not going to turn a blind eye toward billions in theft (except by Haliburton. lol)
