British student fights extradition to US - Operating a "link site," isn't illegal in UK

Richard O'Dwyer, the 23-year-old British college student behind the TVShack website, appeared in court Thursday to fight extradition to the United States. His attorney argued that O'Dwyer should not be sent to the United States because operating a "link site," which links to copies of copyrighted movies but does not actually host them, is not a crime under British law.

When we last wrote about O'Dwyer's case, we noted that his case is almost unprecedented. Only a handful of people have faced extradition to the United States for crimes committed entirely online, and most of those have involved computer hacking or direct distribution of copyrighted material.

The legality of "linking sites" in the UK is disputed. Last year, a judge dismissed a case against a similar linking site, called TV-Links, ruling that its actions did not constitute a crime.

O'Dwyer's attorney argued that his client's website was no different than Google or Yahoo!: it merely linked to content copied by others. He emphasized that O'Dwyer didn't charge users for access to his website. Instead, like Google and Yahoo he relied on advertising revenues.

But the US government disagreed, arguing that O'Dwyer had deliberately promoted links to content he knew to be copyright infringing. "TVShack had the top films listed on the home page so it wasn't merely a search engine," said government attorney John Jones.

Julia O'Dwyer, Richard's mother, told Ars that she's confident the court will agree that her son's actions are not a crime under British law. She also said there were key inaccuracies in the government's case.

"Richard has challenged the accuracy of the US skeleton argument," she said, "and so the US prosecution is now flapping around to get a response together which they couldn't do in time for today."

Her son is due back in court on November 22.

arstechnica.com...

I love how one sided our law system is. If it were the other way around, the US would refuse to extradite him to the UK. I hate the hypocrisy of all our laws and systems. The Justice system does about as much justice as a gang. It's ridiculousness like this that makes me not happy with anything the US government does..ever...

As always here's my reddit comment pick on the topic:

[–]rawfan (_) 68 points 5 hours ago (88|17)
I can't begin to explain how outlandish this is. Two stories come to mind:
a) a German computer science prof was arrested for violating US munition export laws when he entered the USA. His name is Klaus Knopper and he was arrested for making his Linux distribution Knoppix available for download from Germany (!) while not prohibiting people from certain countries to download it.
b) US v ELCOMSOFT
On July 16, 2001, Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian citizen employed by ElcomSoft who was at the time visiting the United States for DEF CON, was arrested and jailed for allegedly violating the United States DMCA law by writing ElcomSoft's Advanced eBook Processor software. A landmark court case ensued, setting precedents and attracting much public attention and protest. On December 17, 2002, ElcomSoft was found not guilty of all four charges under the DMCA.
The guy was in prison for a year. How THE **** can I do something completely legal in my country, far away from US soil and be arrested there? Imagine German authorities arresting US citizens for hitting their children when they were back in the US (corporal punishment is outlawed in Germany).
I can't travel to the US because some published work I've done under freedom of research principles would violate the DMCA.
The US government asking the UK to extradite A KID because of a ****ing website takes this to a whole new level.
A question I ask myself: the content-industry holds a low percentage of the gross national product. How is their lobby powerful enough to make the US government ask for extradition or (in the case of Sweden) threaten with trade sanctions?

Edit: Also I believe I made a thread on this topic a few weeks ago. It was like US laws now apply internationally or something. I forget the actual topic. Anyways this sucks.

This is why I believe extradition ought to be limited to a list of felony type (violent/predatory) crimes all nations can pretty much agree with. Civil matters like this ought to be handled at the international level to change laws in each others nations, not ignore the fact something illegal here is perfectly legal elsewhere.

....and how many different reasons does the world really dislike us in America? It's almost like we set out to anger other nations or their citizens some days.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
This is why I believe extradition ought to be limited to a list of felony type (violent/predatory) crimes all nations can pretty much agree with. Civil matters like this ought to be handled at the international level to change laws in each others nations, not ignore the fact something illegal here is perfectly legal elsewhere.

....and how many different reasons does the world really dislike us in America? It's almost like we set out to anger other nations or their citizens some days.

I think it's all about money. I swear money and greed will be the end of civilization and the sad part is, we can't fix money and greed. It will always exist and ruin things for good people.

I love when countries stand up for their own people. I mean I support the US when we don't let other countries extradite American Citizens. However I am completely against us being hypocrites and extraditing citizens from other countries to our own.

I just don't understand why we put up with our government always doing stupid stuff. I mean I know I'm always saying stuff like "WHY IS THIS OKAY" or ect...but it just really pisses me off. Why is it okay?

Originally posted by drew1749
I just don't understand why we put up with our government always doing stupid stuff. I mean I know I'm always saying stuff like "WHY IS THIS OKAY" or ect...but it just really pisses me off. Why is it okay?

It's a pure lack of viable ideas for me. Voting has failed...The Tea Party stayed independent about as long as it took to talk about it....and OWS is losing public sympathy left and right. What's left? I'm just to the point of caring for me and mine and watching how this all plays out. Everything seems to suggest it won't be much longer before the house of cards tumbles anyway.

And meanwhile, even if its forbidden to kill someone everywhere in the world, the US is one of the top weapon sellers.

I often stop to think what the world would be like if the govs had worked as hard to save other industries like steam trains, dolmen cutting, or magnetic tapes...

Its not right, it does not work both ways... Tell uncle sam to go scratch...

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000

Originally posted by drew1749
I just don't understand why we put up with our government always doing stupid stuff. I mean I know I'm always saying stuff like "WHY IS THIS OKAY" or ect...but it just really pisses me off. Why is it okay?

It's a pure lack of viable ideas for me. Voting has failed...The Tea Party stayed independent about as long as it took to talk about it....and OWS is losing public sympathy left and right. What's left? I'm just to the point of caring for me and mine and watching how this all plays out. Everything seems to suggest it won't be much longer before the house of cards tumbles anyway.

I tend to agree sadly. I still have faith for Occupy Wall Street but even so I see what you're saying. I made a thread before OWS took off saying that I felt like giving up. I forgot what forum I put it in (might have been rant. I don't remember) but I often feel that way when it comes to politics.

See my problem is I can't unlearn the things I think are true. I wish I could sip the koolaid, life would probably be a lot less stressful but I just can't. Anyways back on topic I think extradition should be straight up banned internationally. We can handle it in the courts of the country the person lives in.