BBC News- 'Piracy' Student Facing Extradition To The US

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Here is the C&P'ed Article, Not sure if there is already a discussion on this topic, but here is what it says.

<Quote>'Piracy' student Richard O'Dwyer loses extradition case

Mr O'Dwyer's mother criticised the UK's extradition treaty with the US
A Sheffield student can be extradited to the US to face copyright infringement allegations, a judge has ruled.

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

The Sheffield Hallam University student lost his case in a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

If found guilty in a US court he could face up to five years in jail.

Mr O'Dwyer's lawyer, Ben Cooper, indicated during the hearing that he would appeal against the ruling.

Mr Cooper said the website did not store copyright material itself and merely directed users to other sites, making it similar to Google.

He also argued that his client, who would be the first British citizen to be extradited for such an offence, was being used as a "guinea pig" for copyright law in the US.

But District Judge Quentin Purdy ruled the extradition could go ahead.

Mr O'Dwyer's mother, Julia O'Dwyer, from Chesterfield, has described the moves by US authorities as "beyond belief" and described Britain's extradition treaty with the United States as "rotten".

Speaking before the hearing, Mr O'Dwyer said he was "surprised" when police officers from the UK and America seized equipment at his home in South Yorkshire in November 2010.

However, no criminal charges followed from the UK authorities.

The case was brought by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which claims that the TVShack.net website earned "over $230,000 in advertising revenue" before US authorities obtained a warrant and seized the domain name in June 2010. </Quote>

So, Here is my issue with this to begin with. According to people who i have spoken to on this issue This 23 year old Is a English Born citizen; So what rights does any government not his own have to demand Extradition when they have no jurisdiction over that party. <- Source requested, only because i don't know enough about the Go between on the extradition treaty between the US and UK.

That Aside, How can HOSTING links be any different the Google, The guys site was not a file share site where you directly download Copywrited material, So In essence HOW is this breaking ANY CURRENT laws in effect. The only law that I know of currently is SOPA which at last check was put on the back burner. This being said It is an AMERICAN LAW, and NOT a U.K. Law and while the Recoil of that particular gun shot would be felt globally i and forced to question how the U.S. government could think they can police the internet.

Yes The U.S. does have large servers and company's like Google are based in the US but if the great old U.S.of A is going to start blacking out the internet your going to get more servers from Japan (which there is no extradition rights, and BTW where most Illegal Sat-service up-links are gotten from) Or other countries that hold no ties to the governments- So unless i have missed something glaring here it's more feather fluffing from the Big cock-hens down below.

At the end of the day, I think this is just one more example of being bullied by the big kid in the playground and the rest of the world going, Hey at least it's not me.

People cannot police the internet with out the full co-operation of the WORLD leaders not just the U.N. As servers can be hosted in several countries with Different law status and there is hardly anything that one can do about it then what Youtube has already annoyingly done which is make content unavailable to certain countries/Regions, but that is up to the site owners, and then the question is begged who gets the right to convict the 'felon'

Which brings me round to the beginning question.

If this 23year old is U.K. born, then why the hell does the states have any right to touch one of the u.k's citizens through THEIR law Process. Someone explain this to me please.

It sure sounds unusual. I guess the story is that he broke a US law without being in the US ... which would mean that the US thinks it's entitled to police the world ... which should never be tolerated. Is there any kind of backlash or uproar in the UK?

I would suggest that this case will be overturned on appeal. The US and Britain have an extradition treaty but it pertains to offenses committed on US soil and a person residing in Britain or vice versa. The US cannot enforce their laws within another sovereign nation, simple as that. If this is held up they will start a cascade of countries trying to charge people for breaking their laws while in a foreign nation. I wouldn't be surprised to see this end up being fought out in The Hague in the end.

@Ariadne -Yes there is a HUGE uproar In the UK right now over the issue.

@Political Nick: Apparently, A UK judge has ruled to extradite, but i don't understand how this would work or how the idea of this being allowed to follow through. The very idea is mind boggling, and when cupping that with a HUGE explosion of U.S. trying to bully their way in to being a new world police force is kinda frightening to be honest.

PIPA, SOPA,ACTA Extradition of foreign citizens from their nation for acts committed by while on their nation of births soil. The exuberant call from the FBI to scrape Social networking sites for information that will help put together an alert list. This is just all too much at once to be anything but a political push for something.

honestly i think the larger picture is really something so simple people cant see it for the forest of monotony that is being spewed through the us of a's teeth. The proverbial word vomit is trying to cover up the very real fact that america is so massively in debt they cannot hope to pay it back any time soon, and with the world's economic foundations slipping It would appear as if they are trying to play chess with the political stage to in essence create the same working force as the uplift from the great depression.

I don't know this all seems suspect. Or am I missing something glaring?

The Yanks have been emboldened by Canada extraditing Marc Emery for a supposed crime committed against the US from Canadian soil. The US doesn't want to be the police of the world, they just want to be the biggest bully in the sand box.

But isn't that the Same thing? At the end of the day, sadly this world is based off of who has the biggest guns and most to loose. In this it's also the bravado of, I have more military then you and in this, I am going to tell you what to do.

I have watched this same behavior unfolding since i was but a tike in Kinder-garden, and We where all taught that bullying is wrong, yet we sit back and watch as WORLD LEADERS take the center stage and prove the exact opposite to the children of the world.

This crap honestly has to stop; It's going too far.

When is the world going to look at the over stuffed fat-cat bully and tell them to shove off? Yeah, America may have "BIG GUNS" but so does the majority of the rest of the world, and in this no one can use them because if they do at the end of it all, there will be no one left and it's pretty much the end.

I don't know what to say on this issue, any further. Simply because it's hard for me to voice most opinions as I have said I am not nearly as informed on the subject of the article i have supplied, however. I do think that the people need to pull the thumbs out of their but and take a look around.

On the other side of that coin, one could and probably will argue that if a nation is willing to follow along side with another nations demands then isn't it their own fault for perpetuating the cycle.

I don't know: at the end of the day what will be will be, and this is really tied in to the whole "Illegal links, and Human rights to creative expression and competitive markets." Why should google be allowed to exist when they link copywrited meterial all the time.

Yeah but we got bigger guns.

I think you've got big gun envy.

I bet you drive a PEV (penile enhancement vehicle).

Never heard of it. Obviously you have.

Various nations around the world have been testing the waters with enforcing their laws on some other country's soil for a while now.

I believe it may be a crime in the US to plan a trip to the Netherlands to smoke marijuana. I believe it is a crime in Canada to go abroad and have sex with a minor (as defined by Canada, who recently rose the age to 16 from 14). There are similar laws in other nations, but they slip my mind at the moment.

But if you are willing to go down that slope (and most people will when you evoke the child abuse card), if you are willing to grant that where the crime was committed doesn't matter to whether you broke the law or not, then this is the next logical step. A nation can apply for an extradition order for whatever they want, it is up to the nation which receives the order whether they give up the individual for those reasons or not.

Of course, even if they do not extradite him, Mr. O'Dwyer better not ever plan a trip through the USA.

Jacked up 4X4s with all the bells and whistles that never see a dirt road, Hummers, Corvettes, Ferraris, etc. Any vehicle that projects a macho virile persona. Usually driven by men who have doubts about their virility and/or small penis syndrome, who have to brag about how big their guns are. If a woman is driving one, it becomes a Penis Envy Vehicle.

We made this up over coffee one morning about 5 years ago when A dodge 4x4 drove by with every chrome and plastic add on possible jacked up so high he needed a ladder to get into it.

Insane.

Oh ok... I getcha. No I don't have a vehicle like that. I've got a four door Chevy Malibu... gray... bought used too!

I don't complain about other people's big guns or envy them either.