TVShack Creator's US Extradition Approved 253
chrb writes "British student Richard O'Dwyer, creator of the TVShack website, has had his extradition to the United States approved by Conservative Home Secretary Theresa May. Mr. O'Dwyer now has 14 days to appeal the decision. The extradition was requested by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which has accused O'Dwyer of aiding copyright infringement by publishing links to pirated content hosted on external sites."
WTF (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is the UK government.
Extradited for copyright infringement? Looks like both governments are "pwned". I know, lets make them bigger, that'll solve the problem.
Re:Uh huh.. right. (Score:5, Interesting)
It does seem odd I agree.
The UK a year or so back signed a bizarre extradition treaty with the US a year or two back that allowed exactly this kind of thing.
US really does want to police the world... and tax the world too- and the two things (tax, extradition) and probably linked. US expects citizens to pay taxes to the US government... even if they don't live there. If you live in Denmark, for example, but are a US citizen- the US expects you to pay income taxes to them as well as Denmark. (they have treaties with many countries which mean lower-paid paid people don't get double-taxed- it's mainly the rich they're trying to get).
And... get this... if you renounce your citizenship- you can still be extradited for tax evasion because they can change you with renouncing your citizenship to avoid paying taxes.
The next step of course is the US will start granting citizenship to random rich foreigners (who didn't ask for it) to get income tax from them.
Wow, what a crock (Score:5, Interesting)
His extradition is definitely a crock. If what he did is not a crime under UK law, then it shouldn't matter if it is under US law. I'm sure many things I do are crimes in other countries, but if they asked the US to extradite me they would be laughed at. The internet is an international entity (will more specifically, it is non-national). If someone does something on the internet that is legal in their country, then that is all that matters. If someone from your country accesses it and they shouldn't, deal with the people who fall under your laws.
As for what he actually did, I am torn on it. He obviously did not actively violate copyright since he just linked. But I think he definitely wasn't in the right either, as he was actively making money off of piracy. To take a real world example, if I set up a business that tracked drug dealers and you could pay me 5 dollars to tell you exactly where the drug dealer was that had what you were looking for, I would definitely be prosecuted for aiding and abetting or conspiracy or something. I am not doing anything illegal, as I am not selling drugs, but I am certainly helping the people who are doing something illegal.
Ugh (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Extradition? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sigh... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm more afraid of the US government than I am of any terrorists.
As a U.S. citizen, I no longer see a distinction between the two.
Re:Uh huh.. right. (Score:5, Interesting)
I for one hope that the US will fragment into separate countries. That's what happened to the Soviet Union, and it resulted in a better standard of living for most people under that regime; just ask the Czechs and Poles.
"Lots of little countries", however, probably isn't desirable; there's advantages and disadvantages to being small or large. Smaller countries seem to have less political corruption on average and can have higher standards of living (Sweden, Switzerland; both have 10 million people). But larger countries usually enjoy economies of scale and trade relations that give them stronger economies (Germany, France). So there's a healthy median there somewhere; most US states are very small compared to healthy European countries, so I think it'd be better if the states grouped together into ~10 regional countries, each with a population in the 5-20 million range. Of course, there's exceptions; Hawaii, for instance, would probably be just fine all by itself, plus it doesn't have any neighbors anyway. Alaska I'm really not sure about; it's giant geographically, but has very few people (~500k IIRC). But in the continental US, there's lots of regions where states within those regions are very similar and would get along just fine together, even though they can't get along well with states in other geographic areas. For instance, people in the "heartland states", california, and florida would all be better off in separate countries rather than trying to get them to all agree on everything. But the New England states could probably be just fine in a single country together, as would the Southern states (MS, AL, GA, SC, maybe northern FL).
Re:USA! USA! (Score:4, Interesting)
Australia weathered the financial crisis with hardly a blip due to our strong regulatory regime. Free marketers are deluded if they think deregulation does any good other than to allow more corruption.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Interesting)