Wikipedia founder steps in to help UK hacker • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikipedia founder steps in to help UK hacker

#101

Post by jahewson » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 10:22 AM UTC

TruthElixirX wrote: post #93

jahewson wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. International copyright law needs revising - but I don't think we'll all be agreeing on anything soon, especially after the whole SOPA debacle. If you run a dubious website, your only option is to block all countries other than your own, and provide a notice to that effect. Is it silly? I dont know. It's hard to argue that you have the right to interact with a country's inhabitants but that the country cannot…

Where does the government derive authority to govern interactions where only half take place inside their borders?

Easy: half of it took place within their borders. When you interact with other countries you do so on their terms, because they are sovereign.

Of course, if a crime is only half-committed in one country, then it is also only half-committed in the other country (presuming it is a crime in both). So either of the countries must be free to prosecute.

Re: Wikipedia founder steps in to help UK hacker

#102

Post by jahewson » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 10:31 AM UTC

nicholassmith wrote: post #89

jahewson wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the memo, but it still sucks. Juristiction depends on which country the "harm" occurred. For example, if I fire a rocket at another country, then I've certainly committed a crime within its boundaries, despite never having set foot there. His website was accessible in the US by design (one could forbid US visitors in the ToS, and by geoip), and the "harm" from his supposed crime occurred, for those US user…

True enough, but in this case he didn't directly cause harm and I imagine it'd never go through the courts all the way. Unless we start saying that Google directly causes harm and so on, it's the same purpose and Google profits the same, and oddly enough they're based on US soil. As a British citizen I'm truly sickened by the idea that someone can be extradited over something which is potentially not even a crime, wh…

I agree that the problem is that it looks unlikely that a serious crime occurred, and yet extradition has been requested.

However, the "Google do the same" argument doesn't fly, because Google follow the DMCA and so are exempt from being prosecuted for any copyright infringement from user-generated or crawled content.

PS - "harm" is a very general concept, so if I facilitate copyright infringement in the US from the UK, the "harm" occurs in the US, even though I'm in the UK.

Re: Wikipedia founder steps in to help UK hacker

#103

Post by Djehngo » Fri, Jun 29, 2012, 1:33 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #86

mryan wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting off-topic here, but would you mind sharing what happened in your case, when the court was shown the picture of the officer/solicitor as drinking buddies?

What if they were drinking buddies though and had known each other since childhood or somesuch? Is there a rule that says a criminal defence solicitor can never be in a social setting with a Police Officer?

I think it presents a clear conflict of interests if a solicitor is representing a client who was arrested by a close friend of said solicitor.