Darth Fanboy wrote:If any of the money involved in this went to or from America in any way (if an American company had paid for ad space, if American money was donated to the site as examples) then it opens the door for the US to make a case.
Like hell it should.
It could even be that the door was opened because American citizens were using the site, and this British fellow was unwittingly helping Americans commit crimes which could be opening something up.
If you can be held responsible for people in a different country accessing your web site, then whoever drafted the relevant laws needs to be smacked upside the head. It's a ludicrous concept.
Does that mean if China objects to a citizen of another country using websites based in that country to teach people are to break China's laws, laws which aren't illegal in that country (for example distributing software to bypass the firewall, or posting stuff which is considered subversive etc), is China ethnically allowed to have them brought into China for trial assuming they have an extradition treaty with that country?
We all know what the response would be. So why should the US get an exception?
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.
Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
Darth Fanboy wrote:It could even be that the door was opened because American citizens were using the site, and this British fellow was unwittingly helping Americans commit crimes which could be opening something up.
If you can be held responsible for people in a different country accessing your web site, then whoever drafted the relevant laws needs to be smacked upside the head. It's a ludicrous concept.
I'm sorry, what about the labyrinthian laws and treaties and other legal documents involved in internet law made you think that the outcome wasn't ludicrous? The problem is that the concept of jurisdiction is rather elastic on the internet. I'd be skeptical that the "US customers" thing got him caught. If I were to speculate, I'd guess he was using a US based ad service, or the hosting service - while based in the netherlands - might be incorporated in the US for some reason, or any of a bunch of other ways you can get tangled up in another country's laws on the internet (or even in real life).
On this topic, are these kind of indictments public in the UK? Can we actually read what the USGov said to convince the court, or are we forced to speculate?
From the arstechnica article regarding the relevant similarites in the megaupload case.
The Megaupload takedown, and the arrest of its key employees, might seem to vindicate late 1990s worries about the Internet and jurisdiction. Does putting a site on the 'Net, though it might be hosted anywhere in the world, subject you simultaneously to the laws of every country on earth? Why would Megaupload, based in Hong Kong, be subject to US copyright laws and to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act?
"Because events on the Net occur everywhere but nowhere in particular," wrote law professors David Johnson and David Post in a 1996 Stanford Law Review article, "no physical jurisdiction has a more compelling claim than any other to subject these events exclusively to its laws." The flip side was that every jurisdiction might make a claim—after all, Internet publishing is "borderless," right?
But there were some principles useful for thinking through questions of jurisdiction. For instance: where did the actual harm occur? As law professor Jack Goldsmith countered in another well-known law review article from the time ("Against Cyberanarchy"), Internet issues aren't unique from traditional international harms. "Both involve people in real space in one territorial jurisdiction transacting with people in real space in another territorial jurisdiction in a way that sometimes causes real-world harms," he wrote. "In both contexts, the state in which the harms are suffered has a legitimate interest in regulating the activity that produces the harms."
Surely there must be limits, though. It would be absurd for some resident of Australia to build a perfectly legal site for other Australians but to be arrested and extradited to the US for violating US law. But it's not so absurd once a "nexus" has been established between our mythical Australian and the US. Say the site advertises in the US, or accepts payments in US dollars, or splashes a big banner on its front page saying, "Welcome, Yanks!" All are evidence of a US "nexus" that goes beyond incidental and unintentional contact, and all might weigh against the Australian's plea that the US has no jurisdiction over his actions.
The nexus
Which brings us to Megaupload. Several readers asked under what basis the site could be taken down and its employees hauled from New Zealand to a federal court in Virginia. The indictment provides answers. We'll let a judge rule on the merits, but it's worth understanding the government's position here, which is: Megaupload purposely did business in the US and with US residents, and it targeted its sites (in part) toward the US. You generally can't gain the benefits of doing business in a jurisdiction without complying with its laws, and being subject to its enforcement efforts (assuming that the jurisdiction can physically gets its hands on you).
The indictment makes these points repeatedly. Megaupload wasn't just some Hong Kong enterprise that "happened" to be used by US residents. The site had leased more than 1,000 servers in North America alone; 525 were at Carpathia Hosting and were located in Virginia. Between 2007 and 2010, Carpathia received $13 million from Megaupload. (Cogent Communications in the US supplied a few additional US servers and bandwidth.)
The money was mainly routed through US-based PayPal, which is how Megaupload collected subscriptions from users looking for premium accounts. This wasn't chump change; the government claims that the Megaupload PayPal account has "received in excess of $110,000,000 from subscribers and other persons associated with Mega Conspiracy."
Megaupload also made money through ads, using services like Google's AdSense (until 2007) and the AdBrite network. Both are based in the US. AdBrite alone paid at least $840,000 to Megaupload.
Payments were made to top uploaders, including those who lived in Virginia. The indictment describes one:
Starting as early as February 11, 2008, a member of the Mega Conspiracy made multiple transfers in and affecting interstate and foreign commerce through PayPal Inc. to ND, a resident of Falls Church, Virginia, which is in the Eastern District of Virginia, as part of the Mega Conspiracy's “Uploader Rewards” program. ND Received total payments from the Conspiracy of $900.
By sending the money to a US address, the indictment suggests that Megaupload had actual knowledge that it was doing business in the US and exposing itself to US jurisdiction. Megaupload also received money from US users through PayPal.
The indictment also alleges that members of the conspiracy themselves infringed copyright in the movies Thor and Bad Teacher by making them available on Carpathia servers in Virginia.
The government is following Goldsmith's principle: the harm of copyright infringement took place in Virginia, from servers in Virginia, and the company made and sent money to people in Virginia. Why should it not be subject to federal law in Virginia?
No doubt the jurisdiction question will be litigated by the Megaupload defendants and will get its day in court, but it's worth pointing out that this is not a case about some totally foreign company just minding its business in Hong Kong before being randomly swept up to answer to US law. Like it or loathe it, countries have been going after foreigners who violate local ordinances at least since the famous French case against Yahoo in 2000. And it's not going to change anytime soon.
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
Fanboy, this turns into a problem when we start seeing the line between freedom of expression and copyright protection get blurred in certain countries. If my nation asserts a right to censor other people's political speech, and I demand extradition of someone who introduced banned speech into my nation's networks, should I get it?
See the article I quoted for more detailed legal explanations of how this is probably working, note that I am not claiming it is justifiable to extradite a foreigner, nor am I saying that the British should have permitted it. However, it's bad business to engage in a business knowingly in violation of a nation's laws when part of your revenue is (and none of this has been released as information, I am only speculating) based in the country whose laws you are violating.
If you can be held responsible for people in a different country accessing your web site, then whoever drafted the relevant laws needs to be smacked upside the head. It's a ludicrous concept.
But if you're doing business with people in a different country, then the business needs to follow said country's laws or there is a potential risk. Keep in mind we're not talking about mere access, we are talking about financial transactions. Selling ads and generating money brings about all sorts of scrutiny, even if it's as part of a not-for-profit endeavor.
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
Simon_Jester wrote:Fanboy, this turns into a problem when we start seeing the line between freedom of expression and copyright protection get blurred in certain countries. If my nation asserts a right to censor other people's political speech, and I demand extradition of someone who introduced banned speech into my nation's networks, should I get it?
Jester I know you suffer from the reading disability known as terminal stupidity, but let me restate again that I am not in favor of the extradition, and that I believe whatever punishment the US is trying to get for this guy is more than likely going to be way out of porportion for the crime.
My point is that just because the pursuit of alleged copyright violators by the US is overzealous does not make the accused in this case completely innocent. I brought up some pretty goddamn clear reasons why the US could perhaps be able to build a case. If his ad revenue in any way had ties to the US that is, which again I can only speculate is the case because it seems to be the most logical fit. The whole crux of this is the fact that the accused generated over $200k for himself (and it doesn't matter how he spent it because the law as the prosecutor would try to apply it won't distinguish between net and gross) based on activities that violated copyright laws.
Which is why I said, if you're operating a similar site outside of the US, don't do any kind of business with American customers or companies. It's not worth the damn trouble.
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
I have found another article which more clearly explains where the government is coming from on this. Money is involved but not the way I thought, and it turns out that a British court doesn't think what O'Dwyer was doing was legal after all.
UK student Richard O'Dwyer is facing copyright infringement charges in the US for running TVShack.net, a site that provided links to movies and television series infringing copyright.
On the 13th January, Westminster Magistrates Court confirmed that the 23-year-old could be extradited to the US for trial.
This case highlights broader policy issues about US-UK extradition relations, not to mention US attempts at extending its jurisdiction for enforcement of alleged copyright infringement offences.
Before the site domain was seized in 2010, it is reported that O'Dwyer made about £15,000 per month in advertising revenues. If you visit the site at the time of posting this article, you will see this image shown below.
If you click on the image, you are shown a "Piracy is bad" video hosted on YouTube.
Since mid-2010, US Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been following a campaign of domain name seizures for illegal websites called Operation in Our Sites.
TVShack.net was an ICE target but was not hosted on servers inside the US. The .net gTLD suffix is managed by US registry operator Verisign and ICE used this link as a basis for asserting jurisdiction to prosecute TVShack.net.
O'Dwyer is UK-based, and apart from the .net domain, there doesn't seem to be any other direct ties with the US. Well, other than the content being produced by US-based creative industries of course.
In this judgement, O'Dwyer's counsel, Ben Cooper, sought to rely on, the 'mere conduit' defence of Regulation 17 in the UK E-Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002.
This legislation provides protection from liability when the service has limited control over its transmissions. Relying on the similar 2010 UK 'TV-Links' case, O'Dwyer's counsel claims that Regulation 17 prevents other legitimate linking services like search engines being challenged for copyright infringement, and, he argues, TVShack should be treated similarly.
Unfortunately for O'Dwyer, Judge Purdy didn't accept this argument because O'Dwyer actively chose what links were posted on TVShack.net and exerted control over transmissions in excess of a 'mere conduit'.
s78, in Part II of the controversial Extradition Act 2003, has a 'dual criminality' requirement. This procedural step requires conduct to be a criminal offence in both the UK and the US.
Judge Purdy was satisfied that the alleged conduct was a chargeable criminal offence in the UK, namely s107 (2A) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Whether he could be convicted of this "dealing with infringing content" offence is another matter. The appeal may readdress this issue, but if he gets tried in the US anyway we may never know the answer.
Although the procedural extradition requirements have been met, it raises the question: why extradite Mr O'Dwyer to the US when the alleged offence was committed within the UK and there is a suitable chargeable crime available in UK law?
It is difficult to discuss unfair extradition process without mentioning the plight of alleged hacker Gary McKinnon. Although indicted on severe alleged charges, hacking into various US databases including NASA and the US army, his extradition case now been dragging on for 9 years.
Such a long process has to be avoided for O'Dwyer. It simply seems unjust when when the UK courts and legal system can try the case in the UK rather than rely on a foreign legal system.
General concerns regarding the imbalance in UK-US extradition process have come to the political fore recently. Significantly more UK citizens are extradited to the US than vice versa, leading to suggestions of a review by the UK Human Rights Joint Committee, and recent debate in the House of Commons.
I hope this increased political scrutiny may see the development of a more balanced extradition process. Greater efforts to prevent extensions of US jurisdiction in O'Dwyer's case at appeal may be the first step in the right direction.
So the bolded parts bring up the relevant stuff related to the reasons why the US chose to pursue him, but the parts I italicized are the questions I sure as hell would want answered. What could possibly compel the judge to allow extradition when the mechanisms for prosecution in the UK exist?
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
used this link as a basis for asserting jurisdiction
What. The. Fuck.
Darth Fanboy wrote:My point is that just because the pursuit of alleged copyright violators by the US is overzealous does not make the accused in this case completely innocent.
Who said anything about innocence? This person should not be extradicted, plain and simple, just because he hosted a domain somewhere. Like mr friendly guy said, what the fuck is that? If you host a website breaching Chinese laws you can be extradicted to China?
Lì ci sono chiese, macerie, moschee e questure, lì frontiere, prezzi inaccessibile e freddure
Lì paludi, minacce, cecchini coi fucili, documenti, file notturne e clandestini
Qui incontri, lotte, passi sincronizzati, colori, capannelli non autorizzati,
Uccelli migratori, reti, informazioni, piazze di Tutti i like pazze di passioni...
...La tranquillità è importante ma la libertà è tutto!
Stas Bush wrote:
Who said anything about innocence? This person should not be extradicted, plain and simple, just because he hosted a domain somewhere. Like mr friendly guy said, what the fuck is that? If you host a website breaching Chinese laws you can be extradicted to China?
No, no Stas. Of course he wouldn't. Because China doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US silly. Didn't you watch Dark Knight?
But the UK has an extradition treaty with the US. Uses for catching terrorists.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.
Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
The most recent Mortal Kombat game was Refused Classification in Australia. This means it is an offence to sell, display etc the content of this game in Australia and her territories.
Does this mean Activision must IP ban all Australians from accessing its Mortal Kombat websites? If it does not, is it profiting from illegal content and individuals involved face extradition to Australia where they will face prosecution and fines?
Look, who gives a shit how much profit he made? It's completely irrelevant to the question of legality. Had he not made any profit, he would simply have been a poor businessman, that should not absolve him of any crime, nor does being a successful businessman make him guilty.
The only question is whether he committed a crime. Under UK law, he did not, and both he and his servers are presumably in the UK, not the US. The fact that people in the US benefited from his actions does not mean that the "crime" was magically transferred to the US, rather US citizens benefited from an activity that was based in the UK. IMHO, it should be regarded as any other sin tourism, such as when people go to countries where pot is legal to partake, in such cases you don't fucking extradite people to where the tourists came from if both the residence of the person responsible for the activities in question as well as the base of operations for the activities were located abroad.
And to add to all that, he didn't actually host shit himself, he only provided links.
CotK <mew> | HAB | JL | MM | TTC | Cybertron
TAX THE CHURCHES! - Lord Zentei TTC Supreme Grand Prophet
And the LORD said, Let there be Bosons! Yea and let there be Bosoms too!
I'd rather be the great great grandson of a demon ninja than some jackass who grew potatos. -- Covenant
Dead cows don't fart. -- CJvR
...and I like strudel! -- Asuka
Stas Bush wrote:
Who said anything about innocence?
Dr Roberts and Guppyshark both said that what TV Shack provided was legal (A British Judge disagreed).
Edit: And now Lord Zentei is too.
This person should not be extradicted, plain and simple, just because he hosted a domain somewhere. Like mr friendly guy said, what the fuck is that? If you host a website breaching Chinese laws you can be extradicted to China?
And i've said numerous times that I agree he should not be extradited. But all of this concern over the big American boogeyman and the whining from people who don't pay for music is overshadowing the reasons why America is able to make a case (i'm not trying to validate it, but rather bring up their reasoning).
From this case and the Megaupload case what we are seeing is the US Government going after foreign sites using the location of servers hosting content and the money trail (megaupload), and now with the case of TV Shack and the other article I posted, we see that if you registered your web site with ".net" they will target that because ".net" goes through VeriSign in the US. This is all very important stuff if you are an international file sharer hosting a site because you can help cover your own ass by, at the risk of sounding redundant, making sure none of the infrastructure at all for the site is connected to America in any way.
Last edited by Darth Fanboy on 2012-01-30 01:21pm, edited 1 time in total.
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
Lord Zentei wrote:
The only question is whether he committed a crime. Under UK law, he did not,
WRONG.
The last article I posted wrote:
Judge Purdy was satisfied that the alleged conduct was a chargeable criminal offence in the UK, namely s107 (2A) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Whether he could be convicted of this "dealing with infringing content" offence is another matter. The appeal may readdress this issue, but if he gets tried in the US anyway we may never know the answer.
The punishment is not fitting the crime but I'll damn sure take the word of a judge over a layperson in interpreting the law, unless you know something about this judge that undermines his credibility that I don't.
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
Lord Zentei wrote:
The only question is whether he committed a crime. Under UK law, he did not, and both he and his servers are presumably in the UK, not the US. The fact that people in the US benefited from his actions does not mean that the "crime" was magically transferred to the US, rather US citizens benefited from an activity that was based in the UK. IMHO, it should be regarded as any other sin tourism, such as when people go to countries where pot is legal to partake, in such cases you don't fucking extradite people to where the tourists came from if both the residence of the person responsible for the activities in question as well as the base of operations for the activities were located abroad.
Please look at the second article I posted, My speculation about it being the money trail was incorrect. It was based on the registry of the web site (as well as the obvious American copyrighted material).
And to add to all that, he didn't actually host shit himself, he only provided links.
Which according to a UK judge is still a crime.
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
GuppyShark wrote:As an example of how inane this can get:
The most recent Mortal Kombat game was Refused Classification in Australia. This means it is an offence to sell, display etc the content of this game in Australia and her territories.
Does this mean Activision must IP ban all Australians from accessing its Mortal Kombat websites? If it does not, is it profiting from illegal content and individuals involved face extradition to Australia where they will face prosecution and fines?
Websites do from time to time have the legal blurb saying "by clicking this you are certifying that it is legal to view blah blah blah in your area" disclaimer to cover their ass.
But if you're looking for equivalent to the case we're discussing in this thread. If I operate a website that links to files where people could illegally download Mortal Kombat in Australia, then the Australian government could theoretically TRY to charge me. Whether or not they would is a different matter, and of course it would be complete horseshit.
I don't fucking disagree with you that the prosecuting is overzealous, and that the punishments are stupid, and that it is an abysmal failure of the courts in the UK to allow an extradition. But even a stupid law IS THE LAW, and one should take the time online to properly cover their asses. O'Dwyer may legitimately have had no idea that the US could ever even assert any kind of claim, and I hope the UK government decides "no, no we aren't going to let this happen", but what is the point of a web site like TV Shack if not to get copyrighted material for free?
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
I don't really see the point here when on the websites of the largest legit PC Magazines said magazines openly endorse products that allow Germans to use Hulu or blocked youtube sites. I mean, right on their freaking homepages and I don't see anything different from what they and the OP did.
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------
A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------ My LPs
Thanas wrote:I don't really see the point here when on the websites of the largest legit PC Magazines said magazines openly endorse products that allow Germans to use Hulu or blocked youtube sites. I mean, right on their freaking homepages and I don't see anything different from what they and the OP did.
The difference is that, while Hulu is not supposed to be available in Germany, the content offered by Hulu is legal for them to stream. Youtube material, being streamed, will remove videos not supposed to be on there or block certain regions for copyright claims. TV shack was deliberately linking to copyrighted material that it had no right to do so (according to the British judge).
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
Hulu also has no right to stream content in Germany, yet with a few clicks it does. Tvshack did not even stream itself. ,
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------
A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------ My LPs
Thanas wrote:Hulu also has no right to stream content in Germany, yet with a few clicks it does. Tvshack did not even stream itself. ,
But Hulu isn't streaming anything they don't license, and in order for Germans to access the site they need to use proxys in order to get around the region blocking (tell me if i'm wrong.) That is not Hulu's liability.
TV Shack was deliberately linking to copyrighted content that was not licensed by the copyright holder. Now I know it's been a lot of fun in this thread for people to say "He just provided the links!" but according to a British judge under British law that is still illegal because it is directly facilitating illegal access to copyrighted material.
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
I understand you mean that even a stupid law poses danger. However, if a law is horseshit, following it becomes immoral (and stupid just as the law itself is).
Lì ci sono chiese, macerie, moschee e questure, lì frontiere, prezzi inaccessibile e freddure
Lì paludi, minacce, cecchini coi fucili, documenti, file notturne e clandestini
Qui incontri, lotte, passi sincronizzati, colori, capannelli non autorizzati,
Uccelli migratori, reti, informazioni, piazze di Tutti i like pazze di passioni...
...La tranquillità è importante ma la libertà è tutto!
If a law is unjust, that should be factored into the extradition decision- if I think you will be punished out of proportion to your 'crime' in another country, I shouldn't send you there to stand trial.
I understand you mean that even a stupid law poses danger. However, if a law is horseshit, following it becomes immoral (and stupid just as the law itself is).
The problem with the laws in this case are overzealous prosecution and way overblown punishments. That does not however justify media piracy, or profiting from material that is not copyrighted or licensed.
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
Simon_Jester wrote:If a law is unjust, that should be factored into the extradition decision- if I think you will be punished out of proportion to your 'crime' in another country, I shouldn't send you there to stand trial.
Is there even one person in this thread arguing in favor of extradition that makes this statement anything beyond useless? Does the fact that an overblown punishment negate the inherent wrongness of an illegal activity?
Suppose the penalty for shoplifiting was a multi year prison sentence and a massive fine. That would be entirely unjust, it does not however justify shoplifiting. I don't think that the kneejerk reactions in this thread towards prosecuting media pirates would be anything noteworthy except for the irresponsible recourses that the industry seeks, and the out of porportion response from government agencies like ICE.
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -George Carlin (1937-2008)
"Have some of you Americans actually seen Football? Of course there are 0-0 draws but that doesn't make them any less exciting." -Dr Roberts, with quite possibly the dumbest thing ever said in 10 years of SDNet.
There are already a lot of countries who won't extradite murderers to the US because we have the death penalty. Would it surprise anyone if people start refusing to extradite copyright violators because we levy six-figure fines on random private citizens for copyright violations?
Didn't you watch Dark Knight?
-- Asuka
