Google OK though?
Google and other search engines also provide links to downloads of copyrighted material.
Briton Richard O'Dwyer will avoid extradition to the US to face trial and possible jail time over allegations his video download links website facilitated copyright infringement. The 24-year-old Sheffield Hallam university student has agreed to travel to America and pay a small sum of compensation, the High Court in London …
If your point is that the people who wanted to prosecute O'Dwyer are ignoring Google, you are quite mistaken. There are many people and organizations that are trying to hold Google responsible for their actions but Google is proving a difficult target.
The thought is inescapable that the only reason you don't know it, is that you make an effort to not see it.
The US precedent, which is Napster. In that case the courts found that even though the money came from advertising, because Napster's business model explicitly depended upon promoting pirated material the company was liable for damages as a conspirator in the distribution of those materials.
The same thing applies to TV shack, but not to Google. Google's business model explicitly depends on advertising legitimate search terms, not pirated materials. So long as they make an honest and good effort to remove infringing materials when notified they comply with the law.
If we didn't have a mutual treaty about extraditing fraudsters between our countries, you would have a sovereignty leg to stand on. But you do have such a treaty so the sovereignty issue is moot. You want that leg back, break the treaty. But I'm willing to wager that on the whole, your country gets more out of observing and maintaining that treaty than it would gain by resigning from it.
In my experience (3 flights) the Check-in, Security, Immigration and South Yorks Police staff (yes they also check you out - when I flew at least) are more draconian and "Jobs Worth" than the TSA staff I came across earlier this year on a trip to New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
I have a mental note never to use Finningley (Robing Hood) Airport again - serves them right for stealing the name from Nottinghamshire!
The cost of flying there and all the inconvenience is probably at his own expense. As long as his British lawyers and courts are in the loop, I expect the US to play nice. Remember; the US system is all about obtaining the prosecution at any cost (the prosecutors hold all the cards and then some), and for none capital crimes, generous plea bargains are offered for no other reason than an ambitious prosecutor can "advance to the next level". It's a nasty, corrupt system IMHO but in this case I hope it has been used well by all parties.
Please just stuff a cheque and affidavit into an envelope. Something like:
Dear Americans
I'm sorry you felt my website failed to comply with your copyright legislation. It is now defunked and I have no intention of reviving it (my former website that is, not your copyright legislation, of course). Here's a cheque for the damages we agreed.
Y'all have yourselves a nice day now
I'd love to see T May try to deport someone for failing to needlessly pay BA a few hundred quid for an unwanted ride in an airbus!
Agree with this.
Even if he's made a deal with the ICE, the US has dozens of departments with different acronyms that don't talk to each other and don't coordinate. There's probably a number of departments that have a file on him and will be waiting in arrivals as soon as he lands.
When the UK court complains that he's been taken into custody the ICE will simply their their hands up in the air and say "Wasn't us, it was the FBCIAA, they have their own investigation and we don't have any control over what they do!"
El Reg needs an Admiral Akbar icon for this.
Next week we'll be reading about how surprised everyone was when he was arrested at the airport as soon as he cleared immigration.
This whole thing is a sham. If he committed an offence he did it here, in the UK, and should be charged under UK law. Same with that McKinnon fellow.
He should face the UK courts, we have copyright laws that he should be measured against!
But I disagree about McKinnon, he flagrantly hacked into US based servers that only affected US based agencies, which left them with a significant clean up bill, hence he was culpable to their laws - The only reason I believe he should not have been extradited is the US was disproportionate in its approach, they tried every dirty trick in the book and blatantly wanted to make an example of him.. which was wrong! He did wrong and hence should answer for that, but only if the scales of justice are fairly measured.
Still don't like the sound of this. He shouldn't have had an extradition order in the first place and why should he have to capitulate for something not illegal under British law and not actually "committed" in the states? Does this set a precedent that the USA has control over every internet user in the rest of the world? (Also think Kim Dotcom). About time their high-handed attitude was reined in.
Just seen this elsewhere that echoes my sentiments:
Open Rights Group chief Jim Killock said in a statement that it was "great that [O'Dwyer's] extradition request will be dropped", but he should not have been up for extradition at all.
"Is the UK government happy for the US to assume jurisdiction over every UK Internet user? The government would do well to take a long hard look at its extradition arrangements with the USA," Killock said.
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I can see some other cases where extradition could be justified - for example, if the crime was a complex financial one, the requesting nation had better access to financial and other forensics methods, and numerous citizens of the requesting nation had been defrauded. And, of course, there are crimes that are tantamount to murder in many (most?) jurisdictions, such as conspiracy to commit murder.
But that said, I'd agree that the constraints on extradition should be much tighter, and review should be thorough.
Theoretically because he cant use ESTA (even if he had been arrested in the uk only this would still be the case, a fact that very few people know until its too late) he will need a visa to enter the US, I assume since this deal is brokered at a high level that will be issued. He'll have to visit the us embassy in london and pay for that as well of course, and the PoE officer (that's point of entry not power over Ethernet) can still refuse entry if he/she feels like it.