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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."
If they ever demand extradition for sharing goatse links, I'd be on death row.
Trolling is a art,
More tax dollars tossed to the trash to protect the interests of a few companies. And the guy was not even posting infringing content. This is getting so out of hand. Way to go, America!
First Cisco trying it from Canada, now the MPAA through Britain. An important thing to note through the article is that copyright laws exist in both countries - but that so far, it seems in Britain that link-sharing alone is not as damning as it is in the US. Mainly, it looks like TVShack was much more commercialized than Hotfile, and that's always something that results in a bigger hammer coming down the line. An important thing to note as well is the previous experience British judges have had with copyright litigation - I remember ACS Law and Crossley being torn into, as seen here (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/amounts-to-blackmail-inside-a-p2p-settlement-letter-factory.ars) Really, I don't think he's getting extradited. Britain is markedly hostile to US-style copyright infringement proceedings, and I doubt they failed to figure out where Crossley got his tactics from. Unless if they get someone to play rubber stamp and not examine the case, I'd lay my money on O'Dwyer staying right where he is.
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
How does this work? if he broke the law in the UK, he should be tried in the UK. Under what grounds would extradition to the US make sense? he'd have to have committed a crime in US territory, and if the site wasn't there, and he wasn't there, then the answer to this seems pretty clear...
If you want to try him for a crime allegedly committed in the UK, try him in the UK, not the US. And if the UK laws don't allow you to try him in the UK because what he did wasn't a crime there, then too bad for you!
It all depends on who you can pay off to make a big stink. I remember the Penet remailer incident and Scientology. It was located in Finland but because they were posting Scientology material they soon had their doors busted down. If you're in the U.S. just pay off your congressman (which is an INSANE return on investment), have him to make an issue of it. Problem solved.
Scream it from the mountain tops since it can't even be wispered of in court.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
ICE's contention is that the site's use of an address within the .net TLD, administered by Verisign and within US jurisdiction, was the grounds on which their jurisdiction was established.
That seems an unnervingly broad criterion for establishing jurisdiction(if the the state tourism board of $PICTURESQE_TROPICAL_COUNTRY buys some ads from ClearChannel, urging people to book vacations, does ICE acquire jurisdiction over them?); but the immediate practical punchline seems to be to Stay. The. Fuck. Away. from American registrars if doing something that pisses off the feds.
I can see that using an American registrar would leave you open to having your domain name(which, effectively, is a 'property' that exists in the US as much as it is anything else) being seized; but leaving you open to extradition seems insane.
Is that our government has gone completely off the rails of common sense. But, if you lived here, you'd already know that.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
What is the difference between what he did and what google does?
There's a difference here, be fair - Google, for one, doesn't run an index primarily of infringing content. Google's also big enough to be able to fight back directly with big money lawyers as well. And lastly, Google -WAS- sued under this logic once before, in the Viacom-Youtube incident, where Viacom held that Youtube was, essentially, engaging in mass infringement. Actually, on thinking of it, the Viacom-Youtube incident should provide an interesting angle to this - does anyone know if he received, by chance, DMCA takedown requests? That was what threw out Viacom's suit against Google - that they had complied with the DMCA and thus were not liable. I don't see any mention of them here, but I don't know if that means "We didn't bother sending DMCA notifications to a known British National" or "We sent them and they got ignored so nobody cared enough to report them".
Extra judiciary domain seizures, extradition of foreign citizens for crimes not committed in the US... ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is either corrupt or completely out of control. They must be reigned in.
In the mean time, it's great that they have the situation at the Mexican border under control, gives them more time to be innovative in the war against piracy (keep going guys, you're so close to winning that one).
The fact that our law enforcement agencies are turning into the Hollywood SS is abominable. These corporate whoremongers have no ethics, no decency, and no shame. Once upon a time people such as these were pilloried for their crimes against the public good. I find it appalling that not only are our own lawmakers bending over for these cunts, but those of foreign countries are as well. Make no mistake, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of true liberty as the multinational corporations siphon more and more power and influence away from the governments of the world. And the saddest part of the whole thing is the people, you know, where the power actually lies, are just lying down and taking it. Rise up, you lazy, apathetic fuckers. Our entire world is being sold out from underneath us while you all just sit there getting fat and flipping channels. Sooner or later you're going to click on something and an hour later jackbooted, for-hire thugs are going to haul you off to copyright concentration camp. Hollywood has become the National Socialist Party and they see everyone who uses the internet as a dirty Jew.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Drawing lines in the sand isn't helping. They are ALL criminally culpable, Democrat and Republican. Getting us to argue amongst ourselves is just one of the ways they distract us from the real issue at hand, the fact that they are working together to fuck us all.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
In case you didn't realise DCMA takedown notices are irrelevant outside USA and it doesn't matter if thousands were received or not
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
The article used the correct term, infringement. Piracy is a term that has been co-opted to try to make the act seem worse than it is by equating it to murder and theft on the high seas instead of what it truly is, the unauthorized copying of someone else's published works, an act properly known as copyright infringement.
They aren't "dancing around it", they are one of the very few places actually using the correct term. The only one saying something "obviously false" is you by equating copyright infringement with theft (a completely different act) and criticizing the correct use of the term while suggesting one that is meant more to inflame emotions than to correct identify the act.
Note, I'm not taking a position on what is "right" or "wrong" in relation to copyright, only that the original article used the correct term, without comparing it to something completely unrelated.
We keep reading about how crazed the USA has become with its DMCA, now the Homeland Security taking down domains, and ICE strongarming in areas where it would seem it should have no jurisdiction or business.
The reason is that it's very convenient for the government to have extremely powerful accusatory tactics and means of getting to and punishing people. You keep complaining, asking why RIAA/MPAA has so much power, but it's simply because it's convenient for the gov't for this seemingly private entity to exercise such power.
Under the guise of anything, the gov't can search your homes without a warrant, can pull over and fingerprint you/iris scan you, can confiscate your electronic equipment, etc, etc... without due process.
All these organizations and laws (DMCA, PROTECT IP) are simply a tool, a back-door way into your homes and private lives.
Once you understand that, you'll also understand why such organizations have such tremendous power. It's one and the same - they work in a symbiotic relationship with the gov't, which is working toward complete control.
He's being accused of being an Englishman? Seems like that should be easily verifiable.
I believe it's been measured that in times of economic struggle, people tend to engage in paid entertainment activities to a greater extent, from all slices of life.
Regarding the GP, I've recently rubbed elbows with people who Make Things Happen(tm), and while I'm not going to don any tinfoil hats over it, it's spookily applicable when all things are considered.