Share Links, Become Extradited To the US 244
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."
I'm in trouble... (Score:4, Funny)
If they ever demand extradition for sharing goatse links, I'd be on death row.
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There is a fine line between sharing a link with someone and inflicting it on them.
I'm pretty certain goatse falls on the latter side.
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That's far more criminal than sharing links to TV shows.
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If they do, you'll be begging to be on the death row, so that you don't get lynched right away. ~
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link?
http://www.delicious.com/ [delicious.com]
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There is part of me that really wants to click on that link, but a larger part of me that thinks it's actually Goatse...
Tax dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wow, a stupid country based on stupid things.
Re:Tax dollars (Score:4, Insightful)
"Intellectual property" is one of the few things that the US produces these days and it employs a large amount of people in a country rife with joblessness.
That's what the lobbyists say. But, of course, it's misleading. There are all sorts of "Intellectual Property" related jobs, the vast majority of which are not affected by file-sharing. The entertainment industries affected are actually quite tiny, and even they are overstating the damage, since they keep having record profits every year!
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"Intellectual property" is one of the few things that the US produces these days and it employs a large amount of people in a country rife with joblessness.
The United States is the world's leading manufacturer [shopfloor.org] of goods.
United states unemployment rate is 9.2, which is lower than that of the European Union, and only 2 points above the world wide unemployement rate.
Just thinking you might what to actually check your facts before making wild allegations.
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The official figure is widely ridiculed and it fails to take into account certain demographics. Maybe you might want to check your facts before you post?
Fine then. Here are some unofficial figures that are less widely circulated, and which take into account other demographics: 8.7, -13.8, 156.3.
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That doesn't necessarily mean that manufacturing is at a point high enough to employ a significant portion of the population in an age of automation.
Manufacturing in the 4th largest employment sector in the united states, employing nearly 12 million people [acinet.org]. Above that is Education, Retail and Social Services, none of which are particularly IP driven. So you can make all the statements you want, but the reality is that the US is no more IP driven than any other nation.
The official figure is widely ridiculed and it fails to take into account certain demographics. Maybe you might want to check your facts before you post?
Why don't you please provide a reputable reference that shows that this number is any more underestimated than the statistics of the rest of the world?
Your original argument is false, but
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employs a large amount of people in a country rife with joblessness
Yes it employes large amounts of law enforcement personnel, politicians, thugs of various kinds, and attorneys. None of whom produce anything of use, but consume vast resources. Perhaps we are so rife with joblessness BECAUSE OF IP>
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Further, I wonder how many Slashdotters would change their tune about this if his link farm wasn't to entertainment media, but rather to expensive software developed in the US which added significantly to our GDP & exports...
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I would instead like to see the uproar in the US if a US citizen were to be extradited to Europe or Asia for linking to software made abroad stored on a server he had nothing to do with. Somehow, I don't think things would be as easy.
Expensive software is subject to competition (Score:2)
if his link farm wasn't to entertainment media, but rather to expensive software developed in the US
With a few exceptions [pineight.com], expensive software is subject to competition from close substitutes distributed as free software. Entertainment is the best known exception.
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I definitely am not defending the stupidity of extradition over this, and do not support the over-reaching of my US govt., but was specifically responding to the assertion that it was "tax dollars tossed to the trash to protect the interests of a few companies".
Intelectual Property (for better or worse) is now a large part of the US economy and our exports, and we need to find a way to optimize not only our (the US) success with that, but humanities. (Yeah, I've been watching too many TED talks lately... :-
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I wonder if some in the government are pushing for these stringent measures because they think it will save the country.
No.
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Maybe they could invest in a real economy instead. Why would other countries bother following the US's outdated and useless economic schemes at no benefit to themselves? Is there anything the US actually produces that the world couldn't live without? Sounds to me like the world is just better off leaving the US behind
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It's unlikely that this country can halt its decline. We're at the stage where the general populace is apathetic and under educated. Also an increasingly concentrated group of people are making too much money and acquiring too much power to want to change anything and will actively fight anything that can cause any real improvements.
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I wonder if some in the government are pushing for these stringent measures because they think it will save the country.
No, its because they used to work for these industries, and they expect to go back once their stint in government is done.
This is corruption. It may not be technically illegal, but it's still corruption, all the same.
Extradition is All the Rage! (Score:5, Interesting)
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The UK will extradite anyone on request to the US. It is then up to the unlucky individual to fight it. Unfortunately we consider the US to have a reliable and fair legal system so the granting of extradition is pretty much automatic.
In a way it is actually easier to avoid being extradited if the crime is more serious. If you can show that the crime could carry the death penalty or you might be tortured then you can appeal against the decision. Our human rights laws prevent us from extraditing people to cou
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Treaties are never truly "binding", they are merely a framework of agreements.
A treaty is only worth anything if its valuable enough to both sides that either side will abide by the terms so as to gain the benefit.
A treaty that wasn't even ratified by the US is worthless to the UK. They can run it through a paper shredder and send the bits to the USA and say its done. What's the US going to do? Say, "well then we're not going to hold up our end of the treaty... oh er... wait... we weren't going to do that a
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England ad Wales and subject to one legal system, nothern Ireland another and Scotland yet another again
the English legal system is far more likely to grant extradition orders to the US, Scotland however is much less likely... however seeing as the laddie is in England
just more bullshit from the IAA's... the cocks
Return the favor! (Score:2)
I call upon all nations which have extradition treaties with the US, to start requests for extraditing high-profile US citizens for alleged internet crimes. Let's see how long until the US discovers that these kind of policies are not in their interest. At all. I asked this before, how can the US claim international jurisdiction over IP violations? As the Dutch say, arrogance and pride come usually precede a hard fall. The Roman empire all over, it's time to learn Chinese and forget that the USD ever existe
Princess Leia said it best... (Score:3, Informative)
I think Zod was closer to the U.S. mentality (Score:2)
You will bow down before us, world! No matter that it takes an eternity!
Or perhaps it's more like (Score:2)
jurisdiction? (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:jurisdiction? (Score:5, Informative)
The article said the theory of jurisdiction is that the US is claiming jurisdiction over all top-level domains based in the us, so all .com, .net, .org, etc.
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So what happens if they get rid of the TLDs? Could they claim jurisdiction based on the registration point? I personally think it's rather silly to claim jurisdiction over a TLD, but it makes me want them to go away even more.
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The article said the theory of jurisdiction is that the US is claiming jurisdiction over all top-level domains based in the us, so all .com, .net, .org, etc.
Then let them shut down the domain name. Last I checked, a sign made in the USA that points to the nearest pot store in Amsterdam has nothing at all to do with the pot store itself and is completely irrelevant to laws in the USA.
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So, say, any Slashdotter who would post something that is illegal in US, can be extradited?
A truly fascinating legal theory. I guess Americans should also be careful lest they find themselves extradited for hate speech, holocaust denial etc if they ever post a comment on a .co.uk domain? And watch out what you say about the Prophet on .sa - beheading is only relatively painless when it goes right!
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Under the legal argument of "Fuck you, we're the USA!"
Re:jurisdiction? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, the previous, very pro-US, government in the UK signed a treaty that allows the US to extradite anyone from the UK, more or less on demand, with no requirement to prove that any crime has been committed.
Of course "terrorism" was used as an excuse, but the treaty is being invoked in many cases where the person concerned seems to have committed only a trivial offence, or in some cases to have done something that was perfectly legal in the UK.
The treaty is very controversial here in the UK: many people feel that the US is using the mere process of extradition as a form of punishment in itself. Sadly, there is a public perception here that the US legal system is vindictive and heavily biased.
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Since when is it the government's job to defend corporate interests? The companies are perfectly capable of suing or filing charges in the country where the crime has been committed. Extradition for something like this makes jurisdiction a joke.
Suppose I were to smoke pot (which I don't, but it's legal where I live). It's illegal in France, however. Now suppose France requested my extradition for smoking pot in Amsterdam. That's basically what this is about.
Except that in this case, there's corporate intere
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This is in no way analogous to smoking pot. This is more like finding somebody who sells pot via mail-order and sharing the phone number with people who live where it's illegal and telling them where to find it. I'm not saying that it's worth trying/extraditing over, just try to be fair when making an analogy - Otherwise the rest of your argument will fall flat.
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But they still wouldn't ask for extradition. They'd sue me in a Dutch or EU court.
Re:jurisdiction? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a stupid example. Smoking pot is not theft.
Copyright infringment is not theft either. This is not intended as a statement about whether it should be a crime or not; it just isn't theft, in any legal, moral, or common-sense way.
This would be more akin to a Canadian driving over the border, breaking into your house, stealing every valuable thing you have, and driving back over the border.
The man is accused of telling people about the "theives", not of the "theft" itself.
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He didn't cross any borders to commit his crime (if it even is a crime). It's more like somebody in Canada pointing out where people can acquire stolen goods, and some of those goods might originate in the US.
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To be fair, the Swiss arrested Polanski at the US's request and then released him refusing extradition. The French (where he's been living) haven't even gone through the trouble of arresting him and leave him be. So if you want to use Polanski as an example of giving the US the middle finger, I'd say the French are ahead of the Swiss.
On a side note, I'm not a huge fan of the French just based on the handful I've known, but some of their laws, national policies, and public "interest" toward the government
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The US-France extradition treaty is very limited unlike the US-UK treaty. So basically is no legal basis for the US to extradite Mr. Polanski, who by the way is wanted on a charge of raping a 13-year old girl.
If you think it's fine that he should be able to evade such a charge, your are an idiot.
http://jezebel.com/5372888/chris-rock-on-roman-polanski-its-rape-rape [jezebel.com]
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No, he's not going against any US law because neither him nor his server(s) are in the US. Period.
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In fact, if you did something such as go to a Pakistani website and post anything critical of Islam or Muhammad, you would be guilty of violating their blasphemy laws. If laws and extraditions were applied equally, you could very easily be put to death for saying anything unkind about Muslims or Islam.
You are subject to the local laws of a country when you are physically within its borders or when you have a business presence (such as a server or storefront) in their jurisdiction.
Letting people be extradite
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It's happened before.... (Score:3)
Jury Nulification (Score:3, Insightful)
Scream it from the mountain tops since it can't even be wispered of in court.
-Rick
The moral of the story: (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:This is the America you can expect under Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
America World Police! (Score:2)
Fuck yea!
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Fuck yea!
(Beat me to it!)
All it proves (Score:3)
Is that our government has gone completely off the rails of common sense. But, if you lived here, you'd already know that.
ICE is out of control (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
This bullshit has to stop. (Score:3)
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Hollywood has become the National Socialist Party and they see everyone who uses the internet as a dirty Jew.
I think you need to look up the definition of Socialism.... If Hollywood was socialist the movies would be free for everyone.
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Hollywood has become the National Socialist Party and they see everyone who uses the internet as a dirty Jew.
I think you need to look up the definition of Socialism.... If Hollywood was socialist the movies would be free for everyone.
and I think you have no idea what is the difference between Socialist and National Socialist
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I think you need to look up the definition of Socialism.... If Hollywood was socialist the movies would be free for everyone.
History Lesson #1:
National Socialist Party.
Commonly shortened to NAZI.
Also, for what it's worth, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi [wikipedia.org]
Hence, the National Socialist/Jew reference was valid.
The more you know! (DING, RAINBOWS FOR EVERYONE)
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NSDAP (Score:2)
Hollywood has become the National Socialist Party
I think you need to look up the definition of Socialism
So I guess Rudolf Jung [wikipedia.org], who suggested the name National Socialist German Workers' Party, also needed to look up the definition of socialism.
(When you fight the Jews, you fight God, and God wins. It's the law. [wikipedia.org])
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We can stop this. We can go on the offensive.
Find out the names of the people behind this. Then, it may be some of them belong to or partner with organizations that actually have ethics. Complain to those organizations about their behavior. It's entirely possible the organizations have no idea there is a problem.
And as others have said, writing to our representatives really can help.
The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (Score:2)
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becoming^W
Just trying to help :)
Soon (Score:2)
Directly besides the "do you plan to overthrow the US government" question in the visa application there will be a "did you take part in file sharing" question.
Once again /. summary and TFA vary... (Score:2)
He wasn't just running a "link site," he was actively profiting from providing links to material - which no doubt puts him into the criminal copyright violation realm. When his site was seized, he reopened under a new name and registrar.
Since he used a US registrar that provided a way to argue he is subject to US laws. You can disagree with that, but that looks like what has happened.
He didn't help himself by sticking a finger in ICE's eye by reopening under a new name. Sometimes the smart thing to do is go
It's not about copyright - it's the NWO (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Also, lizards.
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Accused Englishman? (Score:3)
He's being accused of being an Englishman? Seems like that should be easily verifiable.
Everything is copyrighted! (Score:2)
"Sharing links online, particularly links to copyrighted material,"
Everything is copyrighted! Well, nearly everything. With the exception of project Gutenberg and a few other sites that mostly go out of their way to find public domain material, everything else, i.e. >99.99% of content that exists on the internet, is copyrighted. Content that is not copyrighted is a negligible level of noise, small enough to be ignored for most practical purposes.
By extension, all links on the internet link to copyrighted
That's like half the world (Score:2)
And the US has the taxpayer dollars to fund the court costs/jail time?
Hey America (Score:2)
Fuck you!
Yours truly,
The rest of the World.
How a city can use the same tactics to raise money (Score:2)
Assange (Score:2)
They can "seek" extradition all they like... doesn't mean the UK will grant it.
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This would be the FBI's jurisdiction, because they don't have anything better to do than waste resources on illicit URLs.
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Actually, Customs enforcement would likely take the lead on this because this covers international trade and IP conventions. They may also have particular expertise in leading these sorts of investigations. And bear in mind that ICE is the agency that is confiscating the domain names as well, so it's not like this is coming out of nowhere.
Don't be be confused by what ICE's most visible tasks are (deporting people), a lot of federal law enforcement agencies have a variety of different tasks associated with
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ICE, ICE, Baby...
They're almost as bad as that white guy pretending to be a rapper...
Which one?
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Never is a strong word. Sites like this also host anime (at the acceptance of the authors) and other programs that would not be available otherwise.
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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 c
Takedown notices are for infringing content (Score:2)
Not links to infringing content.
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What is the difference between what he did and what google does?
Google, their subsidiaries like YouTube and others of their ilk engage in the generally agreed upon practice of responding to "takedown notices." I'll bet you a ball of cash that this guy received numerous takedown notices, which he no doubt ignored. Now he's in hot water. If he'd responded to the first takedown notice life would have just gone on for everybody.
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What takedown notices are legally required to be followed in the UK? Do they have a DMCA with the same provisions as the American one? Remember this was not a US site, was not on US soil, and the person running it was not a US citizen, and not on US soil.
The only REAL difference is that Google has money and lawyers. That's why the **AAs don't go after them.
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What takedown notices are legally required to be followed in the UK?
That wasn't the question. The question was (to paraphrase) "Why did he get dinged and the likes of Google didn't (don't)."
The answer is that Google and their ilk respond to takedown notices. You can argue the legality of it in various jurisdictions until the cows come home, but that's the simple answer. If he'd done what Google does he wouldn't have an i
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About $5M per year [opensecrets.org] in lobbying expenditures.
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Several BILLION dollars and access to high priced, highly effective lawyers, and over 500 Washington officials with their hands out for "campaign donations", a.k.a bribes.
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That would be my guess. I would also suggest staying away from any country that has caved to the U.S. in the past.
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May $DEITY have mercy on your karma. /. dances with the best sort of correct, technically correct. There will always be some flaw, no matter how minor, that someone will find in any analogy that will "justify" their view.
Re:Free? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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.