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Copyright wars heat up: US wins extradition of college kid from England

arstechnica.com

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Re: Copyright wars heat up: US wins extradition of college kid from England

#71

Post by grecy »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #48
rickmb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that. The vast majority of non-US websites has very little to lose from blocking US traffic. And I'm not talking minor sites either.

"The vast majority of non-US websites has very little to lose from blocking US traffic." Also: The vast majority of non-US websites have very little to gain from blocking US traffic

> Also: The vast majority of non-US websites have very little to gain from blocking US traffic

That's not true at all. Non-US websites will gain the ability to not have to follow US law, and not risk being extradited for doing so.

Re: Copyright wars heat up: US wins extradition of college kid from England

#72

Post by methoddk »

andylei wrote: post #42
methoddk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Back in June 2010, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized O'Dwyer's tvshack.net domain name after a closed, one-sided hearing before a judge. That shows they believed he is guilty before a trial. It was a linking site, he wasn't hosting anything. Google aids in copyright infringement as people use their service every day to find download links to things. But they are fine? The legislation in place acros…

> That shows they believed he is guilty before a trial if "they" refers to the prosecution: well, i sure hope that the prosecution believes he is guilty before a trial starts. i think the alternative is that the prosecution prosecutes people at random? if "they" refers to the judge: definitely not. seizures like this are because they have evidence against him and have what the judge believes to be a reasonable case;…

A "one-sided" hearing where the offending party has zero chance of defending themselves.

Totally legit.

Re: Copyright wars heat up: US wins extradition of college kid from England

#73

Post by k-mcgrady »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #55
k-mcgrady wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure he made a lot of money doing it but he just posted links. How is this different from Google (or any other search engine)?

Are you actually asking or is it rhetorical? Search engines contain automatic references to, roughly speaking, the entire internet (minus explicitly blocked content). The search engine is used to obtain a vast amount of knowledge by a vast number of people. It will link copyright infringing material at a low percentage rate. TVShack on the other hand is used exclusively to link to copyright infringing material. It's…

The difference between the two is obvious but at a very basic level all TVShack did was provide links. I can't see why linking to content should ever be illegal. And I think this is another case where they are just trying to make an example of someone. If they actually cared about copyright infringement they would go after the companies hosting the content he linked to.

Re: Copyright wars heat up: US wins extradition of college kid from England

#74

Post by mike-cardwell »

Tibbes wrote: post #63
mike-cardwell wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you're ignorant of the facts. http://london.usembassy.gov/gb140.html "The United States has not denied a single extradition request from the UK under the treaty. While the U.S. does send more extradition requests to the UK than it receives, this difference is largely due to the differences in the size of the respective populations. The panel report notes that the U.S. has a population about five times the siz…

"this difference is largely due to the differences in the size of the respective populations. The panel report notes that the U.S. has a population about five times the size of the UK, but there have been fewer than twice the number of people extradited to the U.S. than to the UK." What? That seems extremely nonsensical to me. Wouldn't one reasonably expect the number of extradition requests to a country to be propor…

I would expect it to be relative to the chance of a crime being committed by a citizen of one country to the other. Maybe Americans are more likely to be the "victim" of crimes from people in the UK than the other way round. Maybe the US just cares more about certain crimes than the UK does.

The numbers of extraditions in both directions is so small that you can't reasonably declare that there is any sort of imbalance happening. You can argue that the terms are unfair, but not the way they're being implemented.

On the other hand, there are clearly individual cases that are just wrong. This one is a perfect example. Which is why it's getting all this attention.

Re: Copyright wars heat up: US wins extradition of college kid from England

#75

Post by alextgordon »

andylei wrote: post #59
hastur wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers are no excuse in case of a person that did not break UK law. How about your country signs an extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia and you get extradited and have your head chopped off for having a beer, since alcohol is illegal in SA? (Yes, an absurd stretch, but you get the point.)

> a person that did not break UK law the judge believes he broke UK law. from the telegraph article: > The defence believed its strongest argument against extradition was that Mr O'Dwyer had not committed an offence under British law, because TVShack did not itself host copyright material. European law says no crime is committed if a website acts as a “mere conduit”. > However, Judge Purdy rejected the argument from…

So that's it? If a judge believes it, then it must be true! He's not even a proper judge!

Re: Copyright wars heat up: US wins extradition of college kid from England

#76

Post by mike-cardwell »

grecy wrote: post #71
mike-cardwell wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The vast majority of non-US websites has very little to lose from blocking US traffic." Also: The vast majority of non-US websites have very little to gain from blocking US traffic

> Also: The vast majority of non-US websites have very little to gain from blocking US traffic That's not true at all. Non-US websites will gain the ability to not have to follow US law, and not risk being extradited for doing so.

Wrong. The vast majority of websites don't break US law. Not because they went out of their way to avoid it, but because they simply don't. These sites don't have anything to gain by blocking the US. Ergo, quite clearly, the vast majority of non-US websites have nothing to gain from blocking US traffic. Nothing at all.

Re: Copyright wars heat up: US wins extradition of college kid from England

#77

Post by ryanhuff »

hastur wrote: post #45
rickmb wrote: post #19

The current political and legal sell-out to the US makes me, and I believe many fellow-Europeans, increasingly angry in a way that is fundamentally different from any anti-American feelings for instance during the Bush-years. Disagreeing with US foreign policy is one thing, but being on the receiving end of US meddling through political and legal corruption in a way that undermines our civil rights cuts way deeper.

Remember PG saying in a recent essay that you start an innovative product by luring the hackers first? I think the same applies to ideas, as exemplified by the RFS to Kill Hollywood. Well, so here is a great way the US is luring the world talent: By alienating the smart people with brainless and predatory policies like this. Don't host your startup with a US company or at a European data center belonging to a US comp…

Attacking these policies by boycotting US companies seems much to indirect to result in much progress. Instead, petition your (their) own elected governments to bring change. If people are sufficiently outraged, then change should come. If not, then its up to you to educate your fellow citizens.

Re: Copyright wars heat up: US wins extradition of college kid from England

#78

Post by nkassis »

TylerE wrote: post #46
nkassis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How was the money made? Ads? Google has ads and finding a video of any show on there is pretty easy. They are also profiting from infringement. In the end I just don't get why linking is why if what he did is not it's not illegal where he is he could still be extradited even if he never had servers in the US and never promoted directly to Americans (I'm assuming he didn't go out and ask Americans to his site). Thing…

Yes, ads. It's a difference of attitude. I found a snapshot of their site, here are a few bits from their FAQ: " Also, please keep in mind that you're watching videos for free as opposed to spending over 20 dollars at the movie theater or purchasing a show. This should help you put things in perspective (keep in mind that prices change but this is a normal, typical price). " ... snipped price list ... "So, as you see…

"As for the issue of linking, it's a red herring here. This was not some neutral site linking to random, user submitted comment. This was a curated collection. They knew _exactly_ what they were doing." I get that this probably falls into the guilty mind(Mens rea) concept but I still don't find it correct that the act of linking to copyrighted material or not(well to be accurate, it's all copyrighted anyway) can be illegal based on context and the attitude of the person who created that

Re: Copyright wars heat up: US wins extradition of college kid from England

#79

Post by Natsu »

TylerE wrote: post #17

That ARS writeup is pretty one-sided. I love how they paint him up as a poor student, and don't mention the $250,000+ he made off the site. This was absolutely not just piracy, but PROFITING from piracy. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9013803/Student-R...

So why couldn't the UK prosecute him? Why should he be prosecuted under the laws of a country that is not his own?

The problem with the internet is that we're fast becoming subject to the laws of every country. I mean, that one guy almost got put to death by Iran...

Re: Copyright wars heat up: US wins extradition of college kid from England

#80

Post by bh42222 »

ryanhuff wrote: post #77
hastur wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember PG saying in a recent essay that you start an innovative product by luring the hackers first? I think the same applies to ideas, as exemplified by the RFS to Kill Hollywood. Well, so here is a great way the US is luring the world talent: By alienating the smart people with brainless and predatory policies like this. Don't host your startup with a US company or at a European data center belonging to a US comp…

Attacking these policies by boycotting US companies seems much to indirect to result in much progress. Instead, petition your (their) own elected governments to bring change. If people are sufficiently outraged, then change should come. If not, then its up to you to educate your fellow citizens.

If people are sufficiently outraged, then change should come. If not, then its up to you to educate your fellow citizens.

This is an utterly useless truism.

How do you fire up a significant portion of you fellow citizens over copyright issues is the question. Stating, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Just do it." does not help in any way.

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