UK 'Piracy' student to be extradited to US

[Woodsey]

Ridiculous - if they have a problem with him in this country then charge him here, the US has nothing to do with it.

Another thread here asked 'why does anyone support piracy?'. Sh1t like this does not help with holding the anti-piracy line.

That's not really relevant. You can be anti-piracy and still disagree with the methods implemented to punish it.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

And yet again the USA shows the world just how fucking amazing it is. They tried the "arrest the customer, not the supplier" tactic with the War on Drugs and look how well that worked. I mean really, you want to make an example out of a student? A fucking student? This is just plain disgusting.

 

[madster11]

A bunch of stupid bullshit

Not a single part of your post was in any way or form 'logical' to a normal, rational human being.

Google provides links to illegal content too, let's give everyone that works for them 5 years in prison.
While we're at it, send those US Citizens here to Australia, we'll give them 10 years despite having never broken a law in this country. I'm sure there's 1 country in the world that has a law on the books that executes thieves. We'll go ahead and extradite your citizens there, considering 'piracy is theft'. Doesn't matter if they've never even heard of that country, apparently you can now get in trouble for breaking the laws of the country you don't live in.

This is complete bullshit, and maybe the UK people on here can use this as a wake up call.
Your government is doing nothing but using 1984 as an instruction manual and PROVIDES YOU WITH NO PROTECTION, the entire reason for a government.
Get the HELL out of that country any way you can, before they stop allowing that too.

Now if you'll excuse me, because i've posted pictures of myself drinking alcohol on the internet at 18, i've broken the US law for drinking under 21.
Have to go into hiding before they extradite me too.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

Now that the authoritarian enemies are gone, the western world is free to use authoritarianism because there is no longer a big bad wolf to compare them to.

And of course the citizens of the west will refuse to accept that as truth, because they're one of the first generations to take individual liberty and democracy for granted. So as the US starts arresting "terrorists" without trial and for indefinite periods of time, and while the German/ French alliance begins handing more and more power over the European nations to the un-democratically elected officials in Brussels. We're all fucked basically.

 

[wooty]

While extradition is extreme, I guess they see it as the only way to prosecute the lad over this incident. We dont have any strong laws regarding piracy on this floating turd and most courts seem too wrapped up in phone hacking and whiplash claims. (if you believe the media)

This is probably just one way to deliver a swift blow to a case as we all know the US government takes a serious stance on piracy, copyright, ect. Plus the studios where these films were made are more than likely situated in the states......so I guess its easier to take dinner to the wolves than set the table for them.

How is the UK a "floating turd"? Unlike America, we don't bend over and take it in the arse from corporations. The only reason the USA has its ridiculous copyright laws is because the corporations control the government, and want to squeeze every last penny from consumers.

And extradition is just wrong, full stop. Should we extradite all the homosexuals to Iran so that they can be stoned to death? After all, the Iranian government takes a "serious stance" on homosexuality.

I never said it was right or fair in what they're doing, I said thats probably the reason. Its easier to get a conviction over there than it is here

 

[Something Amyss]

Gary McKinnon (born 10 February 1966) is a Scottish[1] systems administrator and hacker who has been accused of what one U.S. prosecutor claims is the "biggest military computer hack of all time,"[2] although McKinnon himself states that he was merely looking for evidence of free energy suppression and a cover-up of UFO activity and other technologies potentially useful to the public. After a series of legal proceedings in England, McKinnon is currently fighting extradition to the United States.

Wow, the bolded made me grin.

WTF? The US can pretty much just pick British citizens and go, "we've got zero evidence but he looks shifty, can you pack him on the next flight so we can waterboard him until he signs a confession?"

Don't be silly. We don't extradite to waterboard, we just snatch them up off the street. What good are secret prisons if we don't fill them illegally?

 

[Drifter117]

It's another case of America acting like a spoiled child and demanding this man, it's the Locherby bomber thing all over again. The Americans had no right to comment on that either. To quote
"Why yes I'm a criminal, we all are. The trouble is we stay the same but the laws keep changing"
I'll be glad to see an indepedant Scotland so we can rid of the thousands of pointless english laws and go back to the ones that really matter. To clarify, i don't like what the special relationship with america, we don't need it. Sure it's fine to trade with them, but we don't need the Americans in our business all the time.I give my full support to Richard O' Dwyer, and respect anyone that does the same.

 

[jklinders]

I'm not really certain this is quite so cut and dry like it seems to be on the surface.

All movie and TV content is protected by international agreement through Interpol and other means. The article also stated that evidence had it he had earned over $200000 in ad revenue from his site. So he was profiting off of the illegal copying and distribution of copy-written materials whether he had actually done that directly or not.


It looks really bad that he was extradited over this but he was definitely profiting off of others work even if he technically was not pirating it himself. Still a bit a nasty turn to extradite him though.

Like most articles of this nature only part of the story is shown. Better to have more info before you start hefting your pitchforks and lighting your torches.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Well I am not going to jump onto any assumption banwagons or make any unwarrented forsight until I see any other cases, (for the same reason, not a tenuous link because they both used a computer.)

The thing that pisses me off is that they have extradited this guy, but not Julian Fucking Assange! But this tells me it may not just be the US 'picking and choosing people on no evidence'. Maybe the judge in the UK thought the evidence was just? Assange should just be hung, drawn and quartered though!

I hope Richard wins though and makes an example of this new perceived system!

 

[Wintermoot]

"The entire world is America!"
sadly this is turning from a joke into how America thinks.
it,s like if the Dutch government where to arrest a American in America (joke not intended) for owning a weapon.

 

[BrotherSurplice]

No matter what your stance on piracy is, this is completely wrong. What he did is not illegal in Britain, so the USA has absolutley no right whatsoever to extradite him. As someone had said already, it's not like Iran can demand that all homosexuals have to be extradited to their country (homosexuality being illegal over there), so why the fuck should the US be allowed to come over here and violate our laws?.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

No matter what your stance on piracy is, this is completely wrong. What he did is not illegal in Britain, so the USA has absolutley no right whatsoever to extradite him. As someone had said already, it's not like Iran can demand that all homosexuals have to be extradited to their country (homosexuality being illegal over there), so why the fuck should the US be allowed to come over here and violate our laws?.

Because they can. You ever heard of sovereignty? Yeah, it doesn't exist any more. This is an outrage. People should be concerned about this. No one in their right mind would let this happen. Normal people would protest in the streets because of something like this. A country extraditing it's citizens based on foreign laws? Governments would fall and burn in normal societies if something like this were to happen. If your own country can't protect you from something like this...

 

[Superbeast]

I'm not really certain this is quite so cut and dry like it seems to be on the surface.

All movie and TV content is protected by international agreement through Interpol and other means. The article also stated that evidence had it he had earned over $200000 in ad revenue from his site. So he was profiting off of the illegal copying and distribution of copy-written materials whether he had actually done that directly or not.


It looks really bad that he was extradited over this but he was definitely profiting off of others work even if he technically was not pirating it himself. Still a bit a nasty turn to extradite him though.

Like most articles of this nature only part of the story is shown. Better to have more info before you start hefting your pitchforks and lighting your torches.

The trouble with that argument is that British police were also involved in the seizure/analysis of his computer and online data, and have found no illegal activity. He has been cleared of any wrongdoing under British law (well, they didn't even have enough to charge him in the first place, let alone allow it to get to court) - this would also include any breaches of international law.

That's why it is not seeming like only a part of the story - if there was a valid case to be held against him (i.e. the reason for agreeing to extradite) then he would/should also face charges under UK law as the illegal activity happened by a British sovereign citizen on British sovereign soil. There was insufficient evidence for this to be the case. Therefore (also in accord with the Extradition Treaties) he should not be facing extradition, because whatever the US law says regarding his actions, he has not committed any offence under British law.

In short, people should be hafting pitchforks and grabbing the torches because this is not only a flagrant breach of justice, but also Anglo-American extradition treaty terms.

 

[willsham45]

our ideat goverment (the british one) setup a system that basiclly means the us can have anyone they want but not the other way round.
It does happen but it is rare that anyone really fights it.

It is all stupid. The US should keep charge of its own citizens with there own stupid laws and the UK there own. Yes the internet is international but fuck it.

And in a sence what he did is not all the different to what google does. google a movie and torrent and you will get a link to that download...but then again he is one easy to pick man, google is a multinational corporation that probally rules the world at this point.

 

[Shadie777]

This is ridiculous. The Extradition act completely fucked him over, despite being under UK law. They have no right to do this. What will happen to us if SOPA gets passed?

If you are a UK citizen, I believe that this epetition should be signed, we really need the government to see how wrong this is.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22467

 

[esperandote]

If the servers were in USA then they might have a point but i dont remember wich case was that a judge didn't allow that a cyber crime commited in facebook... or was it youtube? was taken to the city of the site claiming that that would take a lot of cases to said city.

 

[Dogstile]

I'm not really certain this is quite so cut and dry like it seems to be on the surface.

All movie and TV content is protected by international agreement through Interpol and other means. The article also stated that evidence had it he had earned over $200000 in ad revenue from his site. So he was profiting off of the illegal copying and distribution of copy-written materials whether he had actually done that directly or not.


It looks really bad that he was extradited over this but he was definitely profiting off of others work even if he technically was not pirating it himself. Still a bit a nasty turn to extradite him though.

Like most articles of this nature only part of the story is shown. Better to have more info before you start hefting your pitchforks and lighting your torches.

It doesn't matter if he was profiting. What he was doing is not illegal under British law. I don't even think it would be illegal under American law, but i'm English, not American, so I don't know for certain.

 

[ResonanceSD]

I like how they put "piracy" in quotations as if to imply he didn't do anything to do with piracy. He didn't put up the links himself, and some people will say that he's not guilty for that reason, but those people are also stupid.

He has provided a venue for piracy, and he doesn't have a very strong alibi. The whole premises of these sorts of websites is to view pirated material. It's not like some random uncontrolled thing you see with 4chan or even YouTube, this is a piracy hub, and he's running the show.

It's also incredibly flawed reasoning that your country should protect you from being prosecuted for crimes committed in other countries. Do people honestly think it's acceptable to blatantly break the law and cower behind a form of diplomatic immunity when the law catches up to you? Extradition cases are usually taken very seriously anyway, both parties must work together and determine whether or not there is even a real case before handing over one of their citizens.

Differences in standards of punishment also plays a huge factor, The States are usually known for having fairly harsh punishments compared to other countries, and it gets in the way of most extradition requests. I know here in Canada, we will refuse extradition of anybody to a country where it is believed they run the risk of a death penalty.

Anyway, people are always crying about how unfair it all seems, but the fact remains, piracy results in a loss of revenue in almost all cases, piracy is the loss of revenue for companies, it's not a loss of revenue by means of competition, it's a loss of revenue by means of actively using their products for your own gain. Piracy is theft.

It's not the small guys who get nailed, the guys who download music or the occasional movie, it's the people who are promoters that get nailed, and that's exactly what he was doing. Don't pretend that a maximum of 5 years imprisonment is unreasonable, that's about on par with any other theft case.

Completely agree here. You can't break laws in one country, then expect another country to shield you. At least not in the western hemisphere.