This man has done nothing wrong

[Ryoko]

Altho I have heard of this mans case before I didn't remember his name so couldn't spread the word, now someone sent me this on Facebook.

We have hardly heard anything about this case, he is UK citizen who has never lived in the US nor does he operate any websites based there, yet they are trying to extradite him changed with a crime that simply doesn't exist here in the UK, he has broken no laws in the country he lives in the whole thing is ridicules .

Totally ridiculous.

But good though petitions are for raising awareness, if we could all write a letter or email to our own MP's and the Home Secretary then the each one will count.

I've signed the petition but fear it's meaningless due to the absolutely stupid extradition rules between us which practically say that the US can extradite anyone they like just on their say so and without any evidence being presented whereas we can only do it after providing evidence.

Bravo last Labour govt. Top piece of law you introduced there. I think it was back when Blair used to suck up to Bush like some sort of love sick poodle.

If you have any questions or wish to state a point of view, his mother is here for a live webchat this lunchtime.

Bumping for the later crowd, please sign this folk & send individual letter and emails to anyone you can think of.

I won't be signing the petition and don't have any sympathy for him.

He set up a website on the very fringes of legality (using a made up name, registration details and domain address) and made a six figure sum from doing so.

When his domain was closed down by the FBI he set up another one within 24 hours, and operated a mailing list telling people how to find the new site.

This wasn't someone who didn't know what they were doing - he ran one of the world's biggest piracy websites and ignored all the light touch warnings. Are the FBI supposed to accept that they can do no more than temporarily inconvenience him, allowing him to carry on less than 24hrs later? If they hadn't threatened to prosecute him his site would still be operating now.

If it was my son I would be ashamed and regretful that he hadn't put his considerable talents to a more noble use.

I watch copyrighting things on youtube, I could rip them from youtube if I want, I can search for anything I like on google and it will provide me with links to them.

both are american companies who are just as complacent in breaking copyright laws as Mega uploads, Pirate bay etc ever where yet they are immune to the law due to being massive mega rich companies.

He broke no law in his country of residence, he's never been to the US in his life so why should their laws apply to him? it's up to them to control the content their internet users see, China does it, Arabic countries do it, why should the rest of the world kowtow to the USA just so they can continue to spoon feed their public the lie of being the land of the free?.

Adeucalione, I take it you don't mind the US being the world police, deciding what the citizens of other countries can do?

His site held no copyrighted material and isn't illegal in this country. Why should we send him somewhere he's never been if he's done nothing wrong in the laws of this country?

Ryoko, the US authorities shut down Megaupload, including the legally held files of hundreds of thousands of people who merely used it to store photos etc. Kim Dotcom has been released from custody, against the wishes of the US

The Pirate Bay use the suffix .se, and are beyond the jurisdiction of the Americans. I believe the site is legal under Swedish law. The British government has instructed UK based ISPs to block it, but it only takes a couple of clicks to get round it.

You Tube and Google have 'mere conduit' defence, enshrined in law, so this case cannot be compared.

He has actually broken copyright law here, but no one cares because the victims are all american companies (by manually compiling links to copyrighted material). Did you look at his site? A truly vast list of movies on sites that no-one could've found if he hadn't provided links to them.

The people who DO care, the US, gave him several light touch warnings that he chose to ignore before seeking to extradite him - he set up a website to steal US materials so of course they are the ones who want to prosecute him.

If he wasn't doing anything wrong why did he use a false name etc (Swedish I think)? Why did he carry on after his domain was shut down? I would suggest it is because he is a spoiled brat who didn't believe for one minute that there could ever be serious repercussions for his illegal activities.

adeucalione

I don't pretend to know the ins & outs of what this boy has done.

But a UK citizen should be allowed to have his case heard in UK courts, and given a chance of defending himself.

Innocent till proven guilty.

I don't think it's at all unreasonable to extradite him to the US given that he was encouraging piracy of US generated and US owned copyrighted material on a truly massive scale, and ignored all warnings from the FBI.

And what makes you think he won't have a chance to defend himself? He's not being extradited to North Korea. Let a US court decide whether he's innocent or guilty.

Anyway, I've noticed that there's already a much longer thread about this in In The News...

And what makes you think he won't have a chance to defend himself? He's not being extradited to North Korea. Let a US court decide whether he's innocent or guilty.

lol

The crime (if there was one) was committed on UK soil by a UK resident.

If the boot were on the other foot he'd get the chance to be tried in his own country.

There are direct consequences of his criminal activity in the US, regardless of whether he ever left his own bedroom.

It's ironic that he pretended to be Swedish in order to benefit from their relaxed piracy laws, despite having never set foot on Swedish soil...yet claims that he should not be extradited because he never set foot on US soil. Pot. Kettle.

An independent inquiry, carried out last year, found the current extradition treaty to be fair and a British judge has ruled that, under the terms of that treaty, there are grounds for extradition in this case (and the UK has rejected extradition requests in the past, although the US have never rejected any of ours).

If you want to campaign for changes to the treaty go ahead but I won't waste any sympathy on Richard O Dwyer - he can't claim that he wasn't warned, or that he didn't know it was illegal (putting Fuck the Police on the front page of the second domain is a give away).

I have two issues with this case.

1. The proportionality of the crime. We're talking about copyright material here. We're not talking about murder/rape. Yet if extradited O'Dwyer faces months if not longer in extremely harsh/violent remand conditions. From what I've seen of the US prison system we'd be screaming about human rights.

2. The lopsided extradition law which was hastily rushed through, designed for terrorists and being abused for (alledged) copyright violators. Basically the US can extradite anyone it pleases without presenting any evidence.

So combine the two and we have a situation where an innocent person (and remember he is innocent until PROVEN guilty) is going to be extradited to a country and in effect instantly punished harshly without a trial for months, if not years within a penal system we'd likely find illegal.

Personally I am very against that.

He will only be on remand if bail is refused - it was granted for Tappin I believe.

If found guilty the max sentence is 10 years (5 for each charge) but he will not necessarily serve that time.

Time served will be in a low security prison for white collar criminals, and I am not aware that these suffer from harsh/violent conditions that would infringe his human rights.

Of course he is innocent until proven guilty, but I see nothing wrong in allowing the country that suffered the direct consequences of his actions to make the decision.

Plenty more miscarriages of justice to be getting worked up about I reckon - he knew it was illegal, he ignored the warnings, he benefitted to the tune of £15k per month (hope he declared that) and now he's sad because it looks like crime doesn't pay after all. Please.

There's a lot of 'if's' and speculation there. If bail is granted and if he can pay it, he may not serve 10 years and he may go to a low security prison.

And the crucial thing here is that it is for an alleged action which is not against the law in this country.

For me this is absolutely no different from the gambling sites which a couple of years ago had similar treatment from the US. Again, a perfectly legal activity this side of the Atlantic but the US used their 'muscle' to terrorise the site owners into shutting down their operations. What they should have done instead is go after their own citizens, not the people who are conducting their business inside the law of their country.

If we let this go then what we're effectively saying is that US law is the law of the world.

It is hardly an 'alleged' action when the websites were there for all to see, complete with links, anti-police slogans etc.

And it absolutely IS against the law in this country too, according to the judge who reviewed the extradition request, but there appears to be no appetite to prosecute. Indeed, the extradition treaty only allows us to grant extradition requests where the action is illegal in both countries.

How are we saying that this shows the US to be 'the law of the world'? I'm sure they wouldn't have given two hoots if he'd been linking to Bollywood movies, or British movies....but he was overwhelmingly targeting US produced, owned and copyrighted material.

I don't know anything about the gambling websites thing, so might be with you on that one.

I think we should agree to disagree.