UK 'Piracy' student to be extradited to US

[godofallu]

On the one hand, TV Shack is a big site when it comes to piracy. Killing Tv Shack is a big battle in the war on piracy.

On the other hand I use TV Shack often, and I like watching tv shows I don't pay for.

...Oh wait the debate is on whether the US should be allowed to extradite him? Well if you want a trial in the UK so bad, why? Clearly the UK judge doesn't like the guy that much either.

All in all pirating is morally wrong and people that pirate should expect punishment. Foreigners who harm the US shouldn't feel safe just because they aren't in the US. We are clearly willing to hunt people down. The funny thing is, this guy is looking at a maximum of 5 years. With our parole system that's like 2 years in jail tops. What a tiny punishment.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

This shouldn't even be a crime in the first place. I smell corporate bullshit all over this.

Edit: And I love how people are content to ***** at America, when the judge in the U.K. obviously thought he was guilty.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Sometimes I think that all people should force (if needed with brute force and extreme violence) to cut all ties with the USA because of this shit.
If SOPA passes, many of my college friends (who are working in some politics stuff) say they will organize protests, boycotts and much more to force our country to cut all ties with the USA. And I fully support this.

Just think about it. If the whole European Union cuts all ties with the USA, the USA would easily collapse to it's own economy. The US economy is all about selling. If they don't have no one to sell to, they will have huge loses. EU is the biggest market of the US (beside the US it self).

Now just imagine China doing something similar. Remember that almost everything is "Made in China". They would have to use their own folks instead of the cheap Chinese worker. That won't be possible with their current prices.

Just do the same thing that the US forces on other. Isolate it. No matter how strong a country is, it can't exist on it's own. The US isn't as strong as they think they are. Isolation from China and EU would be enough to collapse the US.

All in all pirating is morally wrong and people that pirate should expect punishment. Foreigners who harm the US shouldn't feel safe just because they aren't in the US. We are clearly willing to hunt people down. The funny thing is, this guy is looking at a maximum of 5 years. With our parole system that's like 2 years in jail tops. What a tiny punishment.

Even if it was just a tap on the back and telling him not to do it again, it's not an excuse.
Did you have sex before 18? Did you smoke, drink before 18? Drive?
Did you ever say something bad about the Kur'an. Allah, Mohammed?

If any of your answers are yes, than please prepare to be extradited, because those things are illegal in other countries.
It is not illegal in the UK! There is no "but". It's PERFECTLY LEGAL and he can not be judged for something that is LEGAL!

 

[Versuvius]

This all boils down to the US and companies based there throwing their toys out of the pram when they percieve a threat to business. Let us look as youtube for an example. You can stream copyrighted material there and they host it. If someone takes umbridge it is taken down but no one is extradited. A UK based PERSON points to this copyrighted material without hosting it and now he is going to get tried under foreign laws in a foreign country, where in his native home he did no wrong. Oh dear, another example of big business ruling everyone. I want off this rock.

 

[him over there]

I'm a little divided on this. On one hand it is disgusting that they expect to charge him for breaking the law of a country he doesn't live in. On the other hand this isn't that simple, it isn't that he's british and broke american laws, not entirely anyway. Copyright laws are international. However before I decide what side of the fence I'm on I need to know one crucial piece of information. Was the victim of the piracy stationed in the USA? Because then the complication emerges that while what he did was legal in britain but illegal in America, the country that is he is being expedited to, someone in America is the victim of a criminal act in America being committed where it is legal; in Britain. He still shouldn't be expedited though in my opinion, this becomes an international matter.

 

[GideonB]

Providing links isn't a crime (or at least it wasn't before) is it a crime now?
Either way this is fucking stupid. I hope the USA Government's arse doesn't hurt too much from all the buttfucking the big media companies are giving them.

This is stupid in /so/ many ways I don't even.
I will just say this : Fuck you UK Government for bending over and letting them take the student to the USA. Idiots.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

This all boils down to the US and companies based there throwing their toys out of the pram when they percieve a threat to business. Let us look as youtube for an example. You can stream copyrighted material there and they host it. If someone takes umbridge it is taken down but no one is extradited. A UK based PERSON points to this copyrighted material without hosting it and now he is going to get tried under foreign laws in a foreign country, where in his native home he did no wrong. Oh dear, another example of big business ruling everyone. I want off this rock.

Yup, I was pretty much gonna say the same to sum this up.

The only reason any of this is happening is the US feels they've lost out on some money, therefore rights, laws, and everything else goes out the window.

Extradition should exist, but only to be used in the most extreme of cases.

In the end, he made a profit off some dodgy ads, he didn't blow up a school. Hell if he was a corporation and not an individual, he'd be getting praised, not hunted down for his economic ingenuity. Can't tell me with SOPA etc (even before all that) that big business doesn't do whatever the hell they like in the very bleeding edge of what's legal to turn a few extra bucks.

As far as I know, the UK only requests extradition when the US has decided to fry one of ours, or lock em up for 350 years without parole, whereas the US wants to make sure they get to personally punish people more than we would.

 

[orangeban]

What really upsets me about this, is the fact the guy might get up to five years in jail. What problems do I have with this?

1) This guy isn't a hardened criminal, he's a student who downloaded some torrents. Five years is way over the top. EDIT: Mis-read the article, he didn't download torrents, he linked to them. And he wasn't even charged in Britian! This is so messed up.

2) Still running with the fact that he isn't a serious criminal, just a dude, putting him in jail with serious criminals is just stupid, because there is a good chance he'll just become a more serious criminal. Make him resent the legal system, then stick him in with people who know how to "get at the man", yeah, that's a winning combination.

3) He'll go to prison in America. Without wanting to once again raise my controversial opinion that criminals aren't the scum of the earth and don't deserve horrendous punishment, American prisons are frankly fucked up. I don't know what kind of prison this guy would go to, but some American prisons I wouldn't wish anyone to go to, especially some of the max-sec ones down South.

 

[Doitpow]

It's also incredibly flawed reasoning that your country should protect you from being prosecuted for crimes committed in other countries. Do people honestly think it's acceptable to blatantly break the law and cower behind a form of diplomatic immunity when the law catches up to you? Extradition cases are usually taken very seriously anyway, both parties must work together and determine whether or not there is even a real case before handing over one of their citizens.

Lol. He didn't break the law in america, he hosted the site from England. In British territory British laws apply and British due procedure is obeyed. By your logic we could arrest EVERY pornography studio in america, because their wares are available in Britain (and depiction on film of real penetration is illegal to make in the UK).
You could argue instead that such laws are above such restrictions, like Human Rights legislation, but that would make you an idiot.

 

[Sylveria]

He has provided a venue for piracy, and he doesn't have a very strong alibi. The whole premises of these sorts of websites is to view pirated material. It's not like some random uncontrolled thing you see with 4chan or even YouTube, this is a piracy hub, and he's running the show.

And with that statement you support SOPA. Using the argument that providing links to places that hold copyrighted material is piracy is one of the SOPA cornerstones which is why they threaten Google, Youtube, etc. The people who are writing this legislation don't bother to discriminate between places like 4chan, where it is incidental, and ThePirateBay, where it is intentional.

And, as I ask all SOPA supporters, why do you hate freedom ma'am?

 

[Dethenger]

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.

Basically. I never understood why the hell they shut down those websites. I think TV-Links has gone down a few times, could be wrong, but what never seems to go down is VideoWeed, or PutLocker. You know, the websites uploading the videos. It's always the sites cataloguing them.

 

[Davroth]

Basically. I never understood why the hell they shut down those websites. I think TV-Links has gone down a few times, could be wrong, but what never seems to go down is VideoWeed, or PutLocker. You know, the websites uploading the videos. It's always the sites cataloguing them.

Maybe the the listing websites don't make enough money to make the feds look the other way...?

 

[Antari]

While this is certainly a very slippery slope for presidence. The key point of him making over $230,000 from advertising revenue while doing this puts him squarely into criminal territory. Once you profit from piracy it is absolutely a copyright offense. At which point extradition is called for. As much as I'd like to support him on this one, I can't. He didn't go about it too intelligently.

 

[Akimoto]

Do people honestly think it's acceptable to blatantly break the law and cower behind a form of diplomatic immunity when the law catches up to you?

I doubt requesting to be tried in your own country is a form of diplomatic immunity. But I'm pretty sure the concern is that this will be a lawful precedence. Laws can be made to punish extradited criminals more than local criminals - this way the current law does not need to be changed and the precedence set by this case if successful will be the basis for the new law. Are there any lawyers/lawyers-in-training on Escapist? I think we can benefit from some input.

 

[Thyunda]

While this is certainly a very slippery slope for presidence. The key point of him making over $230,000 from advertising revenue while doing this puts him squarely into criminal territory. Once you profit from piracy it is absolutely a copyright offense. At which point extradition is called for. As much as I'd like to support him on this one, I can't. He didn't go about it too intelligently.

Money legitimately earned under British law. Where he lived. Where he worked. What business has he with the US? Why don't we send a few Qur'an burners over to the Middle East? Y'know what, while we're at it, let's hand that Danish cartoonist over.

Fuck the U.S. Stop trying to arrest our citizens.

 

[Antari]

While this is certainly a very slippery slope for presidence. The key point of him making over $230,000 from advertising revenue while doing this puts him squarely into criminal territory. Once you profit from piracy it is absolutely a copyright offense. At which point extradition is called for. As much as I'd like to support him on this one, I can't. He didn't go about it too intelligently.

Money legitimately earned under British law. Where he lived. Where he worked. What business has he with the US? Why don't we send a few Qur'an burners over to the Middle East? Y'know what, while we're at it, let's hand that Danish cartoonist over.

Fuck the U.S. Stop trying to arrest our citizens.

Even under British law, directly earning profit from another person's copyrighted material is a crime. And has been for a long while. This has nothing to do with him indirectly hosting or not hosting the files. Its the fact that hes profitting off other people's property. Its pretty cut and dry. Thats why you didn't see a whole lot of arguement from the British authorities.