UK 'Piracy' student to be extradited to US

[Weealzabob]

That is such bollocks. If the film studios and television companies who own the rights to the properties decide they want to cut off their nose to spite their face in the form of a lawsuit against this guy then that's their right to do so. If the British legal system decide that they need to sentence him with something, while laughably wasteful and pointless compared to the other stuff they let slide, fair enough.
But the US government, who let alot of people who seriously fucked up the world off scott free, are planning on extraditing a British citizen, putting him on trial for copyright infringement with the aim of sending him to jail for as long as five years for posting links to videos on the internet.
That is a fucking joke.

While in general I'm opposed to piracy, this really pisses me off. Our governments and law enforcement have better things to do than track down every person who has posted a film online. The US seriously needs to sort it's life out, and not interfere with petty international squabbles. I hope David Cameron grows some balls and says no. And I seriously hope this kid doesn't get anything more than a fine.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Hey, this is part of what the Occupy guys were about, yet most people decided to shit all over that.

I'm with Yahtzee on this one, all the countries besides america need to gang up on them like all the bullied kids beating the hell out of the bully on the schoolyard.

So, every country needs to start a war with the US?

Seriously, it's a fine and dandy thing to complain about, and I agree we don't need military bases in Countries like England and Japan, but honestly?

Last time I checked, British forces were right there with the US in Afghanistan.

Edit: I'm actually a little confused at what exactly people are pissed about here. Mad that he's being convicted of Piracy? Sure, I get that.

But mad because he's being extradited? You guys realize that we need the British go ahead to do that, right? Which they got. You people are jumping the gun a little quick here.

 

[Saika Renegade]

That's true, but historically it seem that nations are fairly slow and reluctant to band together and oppose the hegemon, so long as it remainds quick to make examples of others.

I'd contend that the main issue is that historically, the difficulties in communication, particularly speed and/or clarity issues (i.e., a language barrier) made it quite difficult for any number of groups to cooperate to oppose those who they felt wronged them. In previous days, face to face meetings were required, or slow, inelegant methods of communication that were liable to misinterpretation or interception. Now, with the advent of rapid global communication, those barriers have been severely diminished, and coordination and consensus is quickly becoming easier as opposed to harder.

I offer up the recent history of Arab Spring to suggest that, at least operating in a smaller scale, the theory is sound. Any individual citizen is obviously no particular threat to a government, but a sufficient number may topple a power that is seen as certain and absolute. So many common people could not cooperated so quickly in the past, and likewise, less well armed countries may choose to take lessons from Arab Spring and form coalitions as a result, what with the power in numbers. Libya would be my example of choice, where in spite of positively ridiculous military expense on the part of the Libyan government and numerous setbacks for rebel groups, the Gadafi government was still brought down. With international assistance, yes, but again, consider how many nations cooperated with the airstrikes and interdiction.

If enough people feel that a government is out of line (Iran most recently, for example), coordinated punitive action can be a sting to any nation of any size, and if enough nations feel offended, that same punitive action can mean far more than simply tariffs on US exports - again, please refer to the article I linked regarding the diplomats' discussion in Mexico.

 

[ScaryAlmond]

Considering that UK is now extraditing people for ridiculously stupid reasons does that mean they will extradite anyone.
Say a cartoonist drew Mohammed does that mean UK give him to Saudia Arabia and just say here you go kill him if you want I don't care.
Or will they extradite the three year old who took a piece of candy on holiday.

Anyone with knowledge knows that this is basically going to happen alot more with Sopa.
Shutdown the website jail the kids running it everybody wins (sarcastic)

 

[LordFisheh]

So, in short, the US and UK governments shatter the spirit of a treaty in order to make an example of a pirate. They want to create fear, and make it clear to people that if they can't be dealt with above board then they'll get loopholed into a foreign prison while not even being charged by their own nation.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Honestly, times are changing, while it is true that this sort of activity is legal in the UK, it is not written explicitly in the law that it's legal.

Er...almost nothing else is. The law says what you can't do, not what you can.

Initial point anyway, I believe it's acceptable to make such exceptions when our laws have been very sketchy and improperly structured since the beginning, this is what's happening, we're building a structure for it all finally.

I'd have to disagree with that. Change the laws and get people who keep doing it, or who start doing it later, fine.

But punishing people by making their actions illegal retroactively...that doesn't sit well with me. The whole point of a codified set of laws is that everyone knows what they can be punished for and what's allowed to do.

I'd contend that the main issue is that historically, the difficulties in communication, particularly speed and/or clarity issues (i.e., a language barrier) made it quite difficult for any number of groups to cooperate to oppose those who they felt wronged them. In previous days, face to face meetings were required, or slow, inelegant methods of communication that were liable to misinterpretation or interception. Now, with the advent of rapid global communication, those barriers have been severely diminished, and coordination and consensus is quickly becoming easier as opposed to harder.

I'd certainly like to hope so, that nations will be able to better co-operate in the future, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Sevre]

Simply done to add more precedent to Julian Assange, when your government can use your judiciary to further political ends I fear for you.

 

[Versuvius]

What he did isn't illegal in the UK. Full stop. That is why this is rotten because the government is allowing the US to enforce it's laws in the UK. Where they have no juridstriction. Bastards. Blair and his retarded treaty signing

 

[Saika Renegade]

I'd certainly like to hope so, that nations will be able to better co-operate in the future, but I'm not holding my breath.

Depending on your standards for such, you probably don't have to; again, as with the whole issues with Iran and Libya, parties who could be nominally considered allies but who usually seem to be spending a lot of time arguing and sniping at each other are actually putting aside any mutual distaste and working together - granted, for the purpose of putting pressure on other nations, but it's still cooperation all the same.

As much as government is to blame here, though, I would set my sights squarely on the media conglomerates for pushing such a travesty into law in the first place. If there was ever a lion that deserved to be pulled apart by jackals, there it is.

 

[Kair]

Now that the authoritarian enemies are gone, the western world is free to use authoritarianism because there is no longer a big bad wolf to compare them to.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

If SOPA gets passed, multiply this case with 1,000,000.

This is some serious bullshit. People should protest in t he street be cause of shit like this. People seem to have less and less rights with each passing day and no one does anything about it.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I hope this cases gets thrown out of court on to a fire while being laughed at and then the ashes of the cases are used by dogs for defecation.

 

[Ickorus]

Unless it's a new law the guy isn't doing anything wrong, last I checked it wasn't illegal to link to pirated content, just to host it.

More on-topic: America is friendly to large corporations and it's undoubtable them that are pulling the strings on this puppet; they have no business here

 

[direkiller]

Richard O'Dwyer, 23, set up the TVShack website which US authorities say hosts links to pirated copyrighted films and television programmes.

How is this even illegal. It would be like suing a phone company for having a phone directory with criminals numbers listed.

its more like having the numbers and handing them out to people to find crack
like most things it falls into gray areas

It still dosen't matter he should be subject to Brittish Laws not American Laws. International copyright laws are fine but they should be held in British courts

 

[Versuvius]

Incidentally if this kid gets sent to jail doesn't that mean Google should be shot down? After all, it points to and hosts user uploaded links to piracy. If i google demonoid.me, lo and behold, it is there containing all of the juicy free material i could ever want. Or...does google have lots of money so it is exempt from things like laws, laws that shouldn't even apply outside of the US.

 

[Astoria]

How is what he did illegal exactly? And even if it was why the hell does he needed to be taken to the US to be trialed? Is America just completely incapable of keeping it's nose out of other countries business or something? I really really hope he's found innocent and can go about his life because this is stupid.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

The trouble is, firstly they dealt with piracy by wildly overpunishing people occasionally, because they realised they couldn't effectively punish everyone.

However, consider illegal parking, if we crushed the cars of 1 in 100 offenders and let the rest off because it was too expensive to convict them, would that be fair on those who lost their vehicle for staying in a spot for an extra ten minutes?

That's what nailing someone for $100k for a couple of albums is equivalent to.

Then, they're moving on to just buying governments to make laws fit what they want.

However, I'd suggest, if they can afford to buy enough politicians to make the laws, they're not losing enough thru piracy to warrant it.

Also, he's not getting off scot free, we're saying he should be put thru UK law, for commiting British crimes in Britain, as a British citizen. For the same reasons we're not sending him to be punished in Uganda.

 

[Versuvius]

The trouble is, firstly they dealt with piracy by wildly overpunishing people occasionally, because they realised they couldn't effectively punish everyone.

However, consider illegal parking, if we crushed the cars of 1 in 100 offenders and let the rest off because it was too expensive to convict them, would that be fair on those who lost their vehicle for staying in a spot for an extra ten minutes?

That's what nailing someone for $100k for a couple of albums is equivalent to.

Then, they're moving on to just buying governments to make laws fit what they want.

However, I'd suggest, if they can afford to buy enough politicians to make the laws, they're not losing enough thru piracy to warrant it.

Also, he's not getting off scot free, we're saying he should be put thru UK law, for commiting British crimes in Britain, as a British citizen. For the same reasons we're not sending him to be punished in Uganda.

Not crimes in Britain. Not crimes on British soil. He should not be punished. UK citizen, in the UK and he has done nothing wrong by our laws. He is guilt, fucking, free. He should not be punished. I stress the point again: No british law was broken. He is british. In britain.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Or...does google have lots of money so it is exempt from things like laws, laws that shouldn't even apply outside of the US.

Pretty much. If you're a rich corporation you can get away with anything. If you're just a mortal individual you can't. At least that's what people think. But it's not like that in reality. All people have to do is unite and violently protest against things like this. I say violently because changes never happen with peaceful protest. You need to take down the corrupt politicians using violence so that those who come after won't even think about doing something similar. And in the end, that's what will happen if they keep doing things like this. People can only take so much bullshit.

 

[RikuoAmero]

What you may not know about this kid is that what he did is completely and 100% LEGAL in the UK. That's what started this shit-fest on the interwebz. He did something completely legal in the UK and yet...he's being extradited to the US for breaking their laws...
So explain to me again please. How is it that a British citizen, on British soil, can do an activity that his government has declared legal, and yet he can still be extradited to another country for breaking their laws?

Honestly, times are changing, while it is true that this sort of activity is legal in the UK, it is not written explicitly in the law that it's legal. This is all based on some landmark decisions, it's a de facto stance of the courts. These sorts of things can easily be reversed by means of tweaks to the laws and more specifically international treaties, which is happening as we speak on a very large scale.

I never said it wasn't legally questionable to extradite him under the circumstances. My point is that piracy is highly immoral, and that whether or not the law dictates it, people who support the piracy on such a scale as this kid are in fact criminals. They are criminals who leech off of the intellectual properties of other companies for their own gains.

So who cares if people like him are getting it up the ass, they're morally skewed people who have actively done wrong to others. Who cares if they're setting precedents for further prosecutions of similar nature, they're setting precedents against other morally skewed people.

I honestly think this has more to do with the current generation simply being bitter with inevitable changes to their little worlds. The internet has been an integral part of our lives for almost 20 years. It came out of nowhere and no government was prepared for the potential it held, the internet was virtually ungoverned for the longest time.

We've grown up with this concept that whenever you want some music you just download it, whenever you want a movie you download it, whenever you want a game you download it, everything is free and that's how we've grown up thinking the media world works. Now the governments are finally starting to get a grasp on things, jurisdictions are being set up, treaties are being signed, the internet is becoming a controlled entity. People will say the internet is a public domain, and maybe it is, but when you go to a public park, do you expect to be exempt from the law because it's "public domain", it's yours to use as you want within means of the law.

Anyway, it's really just this concept that everything should be free that is driving people mad I think. Piracy in all forms has always been theft to a degree, and we're just going to start having to get used to a world where we actually have to pay for our stuff. And we're being treated very nicely for it. We get a lot of TV shows and even some movies for free from official sources. iTunes isn't exactly cheap, but it still makes purchasing music cheaper. Steam gives you great deals on all games, you're almost never paying anywhere near full retail price. Things like Netflix have an ever expanding variety of movies and shows to watch for exceptionally small prices. It's not perfect, but we're being given very reasonable alternatives to piracy, we're just in an era where piracy is finally ready to be phased out.

Initial point anyway, I believe it's acceptable to make such exceptions when our laws have been very sketchy and improperly structured since the beginning, this is what's happening, we're building a structure for it all finally.

You, sir, just sounded like a total prick, if you'll pardon my French. The point of a codified body of law is that what you are allowed to and what you are not allowed to do are written down, that everybody knows what is and is not illegal. If they are doing something legal, then its alright. If they are doing something illegal, then its not and they can expect to be punished for it.
What you wrote up there completely destroys the concept of law. So what if it it's legal, you say, its "My point is that piracy is highly immoral, and that whether or not the law dictates it, people who support the piracy on such a scale as this kid are in fact criminals."
How can you call someone a criminal if they haven't been through a fair trial and declared a criminal for breaking a law? Let me repeat myself: what his guy did has been declared LEGAL in the UK. Therefore he is NOT a criminal. Morals don't come into it. Morals and ethics may come into the decision making process when you're writing a law, when you're introducing a bill, but once a law is signed and on the books, you follow it. In the UK code of laws, there is nothing saying that what this guy did is illegal. He merely gave directions to where infringing content was being held: once you say giving directions is illegal, you have opened up a whole can of worms in the judicial field.
Fundamentalist Muslims say its highly immoral for a woman to walk around without a hijab and/or burqa. Do you think they should call women criminal for doing this oh-so immoral activity, even despite the fact that its not a crime in most countries?
I respect your opinion on piracy, even if I disagree with it completely. You say its immoral to do it. Fine. I say different, fine. But when it comes to punishing people, throwing them in jail, and EXTRADITING THEM, we have to follow the laws as are written on the books. The extradition treaty says that for someone to be extradited between the US and the UK, the activity in question must be illegal in BOTH countries. Which is NOT what is happening here.