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Share Links, Become Extradited To the US
castrox writes with an in-depth followup to a story we discussed in June:
"Sharing links online, particularly links to copyrighted material, may render you extradited to the United States of America. 'In May, American law enforcement officials opened up yet another front in this war by seeking the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer. The 23-year-old British college student is currently working on his BS in interactive media and animation. Until last year, he ran a "link site" that helped users find free movies and TV shows, many of them infringing. American officials want to try him on charges of criminal copyright infringement and conspiracy.' The case is unique because the site, which the accused Englishman ran, was not located in the US in any way. Does this set a new precedent of things to come? The agency responsible for the extradition request is Immigrations and Customs Enforcement."
And in other news, plans to blow up the recently surveyed miscreant asteroid are moving forward. Since right-hand circularly polarized signals become left hand circularly polarized when reflected, the unauthorized infringing signals sent back to Earth were considered distinct copies. The asteroid has been getting away with this for more than fifty years. Dealing with this has been a long term combined effort of NASA (National Asteriod Surveillance Agency) and MPAA (Mars Punishes Aberrant Asteroids). Some fear that one of the surviving asteroids may someday retaliate and attempt to destroy the Earth.
Although NASA astronauts were very helpful in the installation of additional solar panels on the international space station which would allow more powerful signals to find terrestrial "unauthorized copies in any information retrieval system" (even if organic and encased in a tin-foil hat), the U.S. astronauts mission was ended after it was found they were smuggling copies of recordings in iPods. Those recordings clearly being taken outside the region of license (if there even was a license).
An official was quoted as saying that eventually machine probes alone will be able to do all needed monitoring and enforcement. They also hope to someday nip coping in the bud by traveling back in time.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=22762
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1274
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=22729