Tuesday, January 17, 2012

UK: Web site owner to be extradited to US on copyright infringement charges

We read:
"A judge ruled on Friday that a 23-year-old student can be extradited to the United States for running a website posting links to pirated TV shows and films, despite significant doubts over whether such sites break any UK laws. ...

Richard O'Dwyer, a computing student at Sheffield Hallam University, faces a potential 10-year term in a US jail despite never having been to America or using web servers based in the country."

Source

Note: He did not host copyrighted material but posted links to copyrighted material. Apparently now it's illegal to point and say "Hey, there's copyrighted material over there!"

I think he would have a good free speech defense in the circumstances. It might have been different if SOPA had passed but that now seems dead in the water.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is simply the USDOJ pandering to a great source of this administrations financial and left-wing political support, Hollywood. Or, as we call it, Commiewood.

Anonymous said...

You're right Anon 3:05, but don't blame Obummer and Holder. Blame the weak, gullible, and brain-dead voters who put them there, and may very well return them there.

Dean said...

The U.S. has no business extraditing a foreign national who stands accused of breaking U.S. law.

If England was to retaliate they'd extradite nearly the entire population of the U.S. on gun violations.

Dean said...

Dang. Change the first sentence of my previous post to:

The U.S. has no business extraditing a foreign national who has never been in the U.S. and stands accused of breaking U.S. law.

Anonymous said...

If British politicians sold out their citizens in some argeement or treaty with the US, then that's the way the ball bounces. If this guy had moved to North Korea then he wouldn't have to worry about this.

Now I remember stories about some international court planning on charging US citizens. I always thought that that's not going to happen. Then there is the UN wanting to charging fees for this or that, or saying whether we can own guns or not, which I also wasn't worried about. But now I'm wondering if US politicians have sold out their citizens?

I know Obama loves this global warming crap and carbon offets, which is going to cost a shitload.

-L

Anonymous said...

We're still going down that slippery slope. If we don't want to be extradited to an arab country for breaking their laws without ever going there, we shouldn't be extraditing someone who has never been here. It's harder for us to fight extradition on the grounds that foreign laws don't apply if our government is doing the same thing.

Anonymous said...

The 3rd reich in action.

Anonymous said...

Normally extradition requires dual criminality.
If the kid would not be guilty of anything in Britain he couldn't be extradited.
So, what's the deal? The British courts put up much more of an effort in the Julian Assange matter.

Anonymous said...

It's illegal under EU law to knowingly provide even indirect access to stolen property (which pirated material is), so he is guilty under EU law. The law makes (quite correctly) no difference between those selling stolen property and those giving it away for free.
He may not be guilty under UK law, as the UK has not adopted all EU laws as its own (despite the EU "this is not a constitution" demanding just that).

Bird of Paradise said...

And the infamous ENHORN hid out in france until he was finaly extredited to th U.S. for murder