UK piracy case

James · Jan 15, 2012

This kid isn't the embodiment of evil and wrongdoing that the extradition laws were designed for. He's just a (maybe misguided, but he's young) entrepreneur. And we should be nurturing those, not sending them to America.

max99x · Jan 15, 2012

tried in UK, but in reality, he's no different to google, but just on a small scale. Google any movie then 'watch online' and theres hundreds of sites showing it illegally, he did no different

newguy · Jan 15, 2012

scooter said:
I agree. It should be brought to court in the UK. The UK have the power to do so. I would be happy to see him face a possible 5yrs here and his £150K taken and what he has spent, should be a debt he has to pay in the future.

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If it went before a UK court he would in all likelyhood be found not guilty. The only other case of this nature to face UK court related to the TV-Links website, and the court decided that sharing links to material hosted elsewhere did not amount to copyright infringement. The copyright owners could've taken this to court here, but they are trying to extradite him because they know full well that under UK law it's more than possible that he would not be found guilty. It's a very dubious use of extradition law and as usual we're more poodle than bulldog about how we treat our own citizens.

anthony · Jan 15, 2012

If I were the authorities, whether in the US or UK, I'd play this the same way too. Maximum impact works.

All the talk about how he wasn't actually file sharing himself is dodging the central issue. Was he facilitating it, and knowingly making profits as a result? Akin to harbouring stolen goods or car boot sale organisers allowing copied DVDs or CDs to be sold at their venue, if you know the end act is illegal and/or a theft is taking place, or if you are profiting from it, then tough shit.

Seriously, I hope he gets sent there and if found guilty, does a couple of years time. Some people think life is basically 'Easy Street' and they have the right to do as they please, especially those who think that because something can be done, then they can go ahead and do it without consequences. Maybe if, instead of the Press stirring up the so called injustice of pampering to the USA, they supported the prosecution of anyone guilty of facilitating copyright theft, then we'd actually start to see a reduction of the problem.

newguy · Jan 15, 2012

Anthony - If the case has tried here there's a good chance he'd be found not guilty. I'm sure plenty of things are guilty in countries we've never really even considered, but I'd like to think that the government wouldn't just extradite us there at the drop of a hat if a request was sent. He either commited a crime here or he didn't, and the UK courts should decide that.

The current UK - US law allows people to be extradited if they could potentially be imprisoned for just 1 year there, even if commited on UK soil, and even if what has occured may not be punishable under UK law. This is not reciprocal and extradiating people from the US to the UK is extremely difficult in comparison and requests are often rejected. Maybe we should be thinking about more important matters like that, and getting a fair system in place, rather than being a subservient joke. That's the real story here. It's not a so called injustice, it is an actual injustice.

anthony · Jan 15, 2012

The rights and wrongs of the extradition system are a different arguement, the fact is it exists in a currently agreed form, and it allows a claim to be made in the USA by a damaged party. In this case, most of the copyrights are vested in American organisations, so fair enough.
There are plenty of considerations about the laws and legal systems we are exposed to, this is one of them. But once a defendant has explored all the appeal routes available to them, and they have perhaps failed, then you end up simply questioning the appeal court judges' decisions. I imagine they get things right 99% of the time.

newguy · Jan 15, 2012

anthony said:
The rights and wrongs of the extradition system are a different arguement, the fact is it exists in a currently agreed form, and it allows a claim to be made in the USA by a damaged party. In this case, most of the copyrights are vested in American organisations, so fair enough.
There are plenty of considerations about the laws and legal systems we are exposed to, this is one of them. But once a defendant has explored all the appeal routes available to them, and they have perhaps failed, then you end up simply questioning the appeal court judges' decisions. I imagine they get things right 99% of the time.

It's embedded into the argument. If we continue to extradite people more readily in comparison to the states, the situation is less likely to change than if we actually change our attitude. If we started refusing to extradite people in cases of this magnitude, then it would be a matter that would be resolved pretty sharpish, and we could get something fair in place.

Anyone extradited is not able to get legal aid either. It's something that is unfair in my view from beginning to end. Hopefully this case will be overturned, or drag on for years and something more realistic can be put in place in the meantime. A country should aim to defend their own citizens, especially in cases like this which in all likelyhood would not even be result in a criminal sentence in the UK. The states clearly have that consideration in mind. We do not.