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Alleged KickassTorrents Owner Considers 'Voluntary Surrender' To the US (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Earlier this year a Polish court ruled that Artem Vaulin, the alleged owner of the defunct torrent site KickassTorrents, can be extradited to the United States. The decision came as a disappointment to the defense team, which quickly announced an appeal. Vaulin has since been released on bail and currently resides in a Warsaw apartment. His release has made it easier to communicate with his attorneys in the United States, who have started negotiations with the U.S. Government. While the extradition appeal is still ongoing, it now appears that under the right conditions Vaulin might consider traveling to the United States voluntarily, so he can "resolve" the pending charges. This is what the defense team states in a motion for a status conference (pdf), which was submitted earlier this week.
Why the fuck would a sovereign nation extradite someone to the US over something as victimless as hosting a website?
Oh right. The corporations own the US and the US owns the world.
"I still don't understand the legal theory that says that foreign citizens operating entirely outside of the US can be held accountable to US law"
If a citizen of country X harms a citizen or entity of country Y while in territory Z, any of X, Y, and Z might have or claim jurisdiction. Who actually handles the case is usually determined by treaties, foremost extradition treaties. This is hardly unique to the US. Europe claims extraterritorial jurisdiction all the time as well.
The US/Europe distinction you're trying to make is probably invalid anyway, since a lot of the plaintiffs are probably partly European owned, and the underlying copyright laws were originally created based on pressure by European publishers. This isn't the US throwing it's weight around, it's the US operating according to international treaties based on long standing European practice and political pressures.