US Seeks Extradition For UK Student's Copyright Violation

[Trebort]

Sadly this moron is a student at my University. This makes us all look bad.

I say he should be deported. He willingly broke the law. Stole, and profitted from that stolen property. If the American Government don't get him, the companies that own all the copyrighted material will sue him back to the stone age.

Did you actually read the article at all? He hasn't stolen or profited from stolen property, and hasn't broken any UK law, and the US has no jurisdiction, as the server with the links (he didn't host any copyright material, or any torrents, he just linked to torrent sites, which is legal in the UK) was in Sweden, where the content was also legal.

So... yea, why do you want a fellow Brit sent to a US prison for not committing a crime?

Please, next time, know the law in the UK before saying things like "he willingly broke the law". Hell, it's not like dozens of others haven't already pointed out that he hasn't broken UK law in the posts before yours if you'd bothered to read the thread...

I don't read half of what is on the escapist because it's mostly bullshit, with emotional teenagers posting crap, after crap about how they think the world should be.

You might want to research this on sites that have some credibility instead of geek.com, Metro and The Inquirer...

 

[Tsaba]

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

I'm going to assume, it's one of those laws where a bunch of countries signed a piece of paper saying if you do this kind of crime that affects web/world/sun/kittens/MLP, you will face the law in X country. (that would be my guess on the "strange law" and this is the first step to it.)

 

[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

I'm going to assume, it's one of those laws where a bunch of countries signed a piece of paper saying if you do this kind of crime that affects web/world/sun/kittens/MLP, you will face the law in X country. (that would be my guess on the "strange law" and this is the first step to it.)

there is various copywrite stuff signed between the us and europe but extradition... thats rather unusual and as far as I know doest really exist, I get the impression this is mostly asking for a "favor" kind of thing but really the laws Im talking about are if he actually stands trial here. Mainly he didnt upload anything he just linked it so it would be interesting to see how that goes, if he gets convicted then it would mean pretty bad things for more then a few people, if not then that means they wouldnt be able to do more cases based on something like just linking to sites

 

[Lightslei]

The United State needs to take a lesson from history.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

 

[Tsaba]

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

I'm going to assume, it's one of those laws where a bunch of countries signed a piece of paper saying if you do this kind of crime that affects web/world/sun/kittens/MLP, you will face the law in X country. (that would be my guess on the "strange law" and this is the first step to it.)

there is various copywrite stuff signed between the us and europe but extradition... thats rather unusual and as far as I know doest really exist, I get the impression this is mostly asking for a "favor" kind of thing but really the laws Im talking about are if he actually stands trial here. Mainly he didnt upload anything he just linked it so it would be interesting to see how that goes, if he gets convicted then it would mean pretty bad things for more then a few people, if not then that means they wouldnt be able to do more cases based on something like just linking to sites

Don't get me wrong, I agree that this is ridiculous, but, if I had to put money on how, it would be on them trying to tip toe around one of those laws.

 

[maninahat]

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)

Thanks new guy, I didn't know the specific details.

I don't know if the guy deserves extradition, but if they choose not to, where does that leave the US? It sort of sends out the message that a non-US citizen can infringe American property as much as they like, and the US can't do anything to punish them.

So either create a means for the UK to punish the guy on behalf of the US, or resort to flying them to the US. Either way it is awkward.

 

[KAPTAINmORGANnWo4life]

Blatant attempts to violate the sovereignty of a peaceful state in a matter of sole interest of multi-billion dollar corporations?

Seems like typical American foreign policy to me.

Although, as with any piracy case, I just don't understand why people who, to go with a bog-standard line, wouldn't steal a physical object, but have no qualms about stealing a computer program.

 

[maninahat]

The United State needs to take a lesson from history.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

Should also allow non-US folk to commit criminal acts against them with impunity?

 

[maninahat]

Sadly this moron is a student at my University. This makes us all look bad.

I say he should be deported. He willingly broke the law. Stole, and profitted from that stolen property. If the American Government don't get him, the companies that own all the copyrighted material will sue him back to the stone age.

Did you actually read the article at all? He hasn't stolen or profited from stolen property, and hasn't broken any UK law, and the US has no jurisdiction, as the server with the links (he didn't host any copyright material, or any torrents, he just linked to torrent sites, which is legal in the UK) was in Sweden, where the content was also legal.

So... yea, why do you want a fellow Brit sent to a US prison for not committing a crime?

Please, next time, know the law in the UK before saying things like "he willingly broke the law". Hell, it's not like dozens of others haven't already pointed out that he hasn't broken UK law in the posts before yours if you'd bothered to read the thread...

Same goes to you, unless you're a lawyer who already knows the law in detail. Read what this guy said on the first page of comments:

"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)"

 

[rapidoud]

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.

+1

And when we ask the USA to do it, they ALWAYS deny us. Hypocritical government.

'Should also allow non-US folk to commit criminal acts against them with impunity?'

Last time I checked the US also has alot of terrible laws. If you hold a US greencard, irrelevant of whether you live there, you have to pay them tax. WTF?

No wonder the majority of banks no longer accept US citizens.

 

[Giest4life]

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

Fantastic.

Do you know what the worst part is? I live within a stones throw to where they come up with this shit.

So, which one of these is illegal:

http://thepiratebay.org/
or
http://www.google.com/search?q=The+Pirate+Bay&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a&hl=en

?
Or perhaps they would like to bring Wikipedia up on charges:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay
See how it links there, too?

Yeah. If linking is illegal, feel free to take out every single page on the internet US Government.

In the meantime, feel free to charge yourselves you MASSIVE retards.
http://www.justice.gov/usao/cac/pressroom/pr2009/086.html

Scroll down and you will notice the link.

If I had your bank account number, I would have deposited a bucket load of cash into your account.

 

[Lightslei]

The United State needs to take a lesson from history.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

Should also allow non-US folk to commit criminal acts against them with impunity?

Governments should fear all people, not force people to fear them. The government is corrupt and controlled by lobbyists and politicians own avarice, thus I do not support anything that is obviously created by corporations for their own personal and ludicrous benefit.

 

[Jake Lewis Clayton]

All i can say is F*** the US.

We have requested extradition on a hell of alot of people to them over the last 30 years, and i think we have only recieved 2 and they were on terrorism charges.

The US can't expect US law to extend to the internet, i'm sorry but my internet connection is provided by a UK company, the world wide web was developed by a british and a belgian, the internet terminology of packet switching alot of the work which went into the final design for the first public packet switching (what the internet was founded on) network was done by Donald Davies a british scientist. , infact the internet is just every countries network connected together, which first occured in 1978, via the international packet switching service (ARPANET to americans), which provided access to databases globally by 1990 and most of the world by 1981. (one of the major contributors to this was the UK post office)

The US does not own the 'internet', nor has it ever, or ever will.

Nor does US law apply to the UK, nor the internet as part of their juristiction.

and we should fight the US prosecutors to the death to stop this extradition of a British citizin.

 

[cfehunter]

Three things:

#1 Extradition for something this trivial is moronic.

#2 American laws are NOT world law and the guy they're trying to extradite is not in breach of UK copyright law.

#3 Surely the companies that own the sites where the videos are hosted are more responsible for this than the person in question. It's their sites that the content is being streamed from, it's them that made the infringement possible. Why aren't they infront of a judge?

I'm fairly sure megavideo is an american company, they wouldn't even have to extradite the CEO.

 

[maninahat]

The United State needs to take a lesson from history.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

Should also allow non-US folk to commit criminal acts against them with impunity?

Governments should fear all people, not force people to fear them. The government is corrupt and controlled by lobbyists and politicians own avarice, thus I do not support anything that is obviously created by corporations for their own personal and ludicrous benefit.

People shouldn't fear a government, but criminals should. According to your argument, corporations should ideally lack a means of preventing people from stealing their ideas, inventions and services. The idea that someone may invest a huge amount of money and hard work in something, only for someone to come along and take it is a slap in the face to decent working people. I find it ironic that we should be criticizing the corporations for greed during a discussion about pirates who will steal whatever they want.

Government, through copyright laws, provide businesses the means to protect their hard work. Government is thus presenting a valuable service to the people in that respect. Without it, businesses could not properly function.

 

[bootz]

So they shut down all his servers for... linking to youtube. Why don't they shut down google or youtube itself. I hope we sues to get his servers back.

 

[piper65]

"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?"

wow, biased reporting?

And, why is there any moral judgment put on top of this kind of cases?
There is no moral question here, just the one with the big bucks and influence in government crushing the opportunistic

 

[Lightslei]

The United State needs to take a lesson from history.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

Should also allow non-US folk to commit criminal acts against them with impunity?

Governments should fear all people, not force people to fear them. The government is corrupt and controlled by lobbyists and politicians own avarice, thus I do not support anything that is obviously created by corporations for their own personal and ludicrous benefit.

People shouldn't fear a government, but criminals should. According to your argument, corporations should ideally lack a means of preventing people from stealing their ideas, inventions and services. The idea that someone may invest a huge amount of money and hard work in something, only for someone to come along and take it is a slap in the face to decent working people. I find it ironic that we should be criticizing the corporations for greed during a discussion about pirates who will steal whatever they want.

Government, through copyright laws, provide businesses the means to protect their hard work. Government is thus presenting a valuable service to the people in that respect. Without it, businesses could not properly function.

And if these businesses didn't create artificial amounts of damage, and destroy the lives of people who live in the lower class for minor infractions, then I wouldn't be as agitated by them.

Someone pirates a song we sell for $1, sue them for $1,000 per song.

Just does not make logical sense to me.

In addition, I disagree with numerous laws that seem illogical to enforce, or are quite frankly stupid, for example, it being illegal to wear slippers after 10PM in NY.

Definition of what is criminal, is subjective to those in power and their own biases. As long as people do not violate basic human rights, I fail to see many of the people deemed as criminals, as such.

 

[maninahat]

The United State needs to take a lesson from history.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

Should also allow non-US folk to commit criminal acts against them with impunity?

Governments should fear all people, not force people to fear them. The government is corrupt and controlled by lobbyists and politicians own avarice, thus I do not support anything that is obviously created by corporations for their own personal and ludicrous benefit.

snip

And if these businesses didn't create artificial amounts of damage, and destroy the lives of people who live in the lower class for minor infractions, then I wouldn't be as agitated by them.

Someone pirates a song we sell for $1, sue them for $1,000 per song.

Just does not make logical sense to me.

In addition, I disagree with numerous laws that seem illogical to enforce, or are quite frankly stupid, for example, it being illegal to wear slippers after 10PM in NY.

Definition of what is criminal, is subjective to those in power and their own biases. As long as people do not violate basic human rights, I fail to see many of the people deemed as criminals, as such.

It isn't just the lower classes who pirate stuff. Considering you have to own a computer and internet access in the first place, internet piracy favours middle-class folk: the kind who can normally afford the stuff in the first place.

And you have to make the punishment to both discourage pirates from committing the crime, and severe enough to recompense the businesses for lost profits. Pirating a $1 song could result in tens of thousands of people getting that song for free. It is unlikely that everyone who shares that song would buy it (if buying were the only option), but obviously many potential buyers are taking the free option.

Whilst "criminal" is subjective, I don't see how one wouldn't reason that casual theft is wrong, it has victims, and it should go punished. Property is a basic human right, and theft violates it.

 

[Lightslei]

The United State needs to take a lesson from history.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

Should also allow non-US folk to commit criminal acts against them with impunity?

Governments should fear all people, not force people to fear them. The government is corrupt and controlled by lobbyists and politicians own avarice, thus I do not support anything that is obviously created by corporations for their own personal and ludicrous benefit.

snip

And if these businesses didn't create artificial amounts of damage, and destroy the lives of people who live in the lower class for minor infractions, then I wouldn't be as agitated by them.

Someone pirates a song we sell for $1, sue them for $1,000 per song.

Just does not make logical sense to me.

In addition, I disagree with numerous laws that seem illogical to enforce, or are quite frankly stupid, for example, it being illegal to wear slippers after 10PM in NY.

Definition of what is criminal, is subjective to those in power and their own biases. As long as people do not violate basic human rights, I fail to see many of the people deemed as criminals, as such.

It isn't just the lower classes who pirate stuff. Considering you have to own a computer and internet access in the first place, internet piracy favours middle-class folk: the kind who can normally afford the stuff in the first place.

And you have to make the punishment to both discourage pirates from committing the crime, and severe enough to recompense the businesses for lost profits. Pirating a $1 song could result in tens of thousands of people getting that song for free. It is unlikely that everyone who shares that song would buy it (if buying were the only option), but obviously many potential buyers are taking the free option.

Whilst "criminal" is subjective, I don't see how one wouldn't reason that casual theft is wrong, it has victims, and it should go punished. Property is a basic human right, and theft violates it.

And then I can argue that large organizations steal from artists by claiming absurd expenses for publishing their work.

You're making a circular argument against me.