Jimmy Wales Confident That UK Gov't Won't Ignore 200,000+ Signatures Against O'Dwyer Extradition

from the public-will-be-damned dept

We mentioned, recently, that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales had started a petition to try to stop the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer, the UK student who set up a site for users to point others to online sources for TV shows (some of which were legit, some of which were infringing) -- and is now facing extradition and criminal charges in the US for daring to help people find video online. Since then the petition has received well over 200,000 signatures, including UK politicians from all three parties. You might think that the UK government would take notice.

Not yet, it seems.

The UK Home Office is apparently ignoring the petition and sticking with the party (i.e., Hollywood lobbyist) line. The site V3 (linked in the last sentence) reached out to the Home Office who said that they were aware of the petition, but didn't seem to care:

"Richard O'Dwyer is wanted in the US for offences related to copyright infringement," a Home Office spokesman told V3.

"The UK courts found there were no statutory bars to his surrender under the Extradition Act 2003 and on 9 March the Home Secretary, having carefully considered all relevant matters, signed an order for his extradition to the US."

That said, Jimmy Wales insists that the "low level" spokesperson "is wrong" and he fully expects that the Home Office will, in fact, respond after meeting with him about this issue. Let's hope that's true. Given the large public outcries about other related copyright issues (SOPA, ACTA...) you would think that the UK government would at least be paying attention when a rather large group of the public speaks out on an issue related to copyright. Hopefully, the answer given to V3 was just a spokesperson stalling until the Home Office is ready to officially address the matter.

Filed Under: acta, extradition, hollywood, jimmy wales, richard o'dwyer, sopa, uk
Companies: wikipedia

UK Politician Speaks Out Against The Travesty Of Trying To Deport Richard O'Dwyer To Feed Hollywood's Anger

from the this-would-be-a-mistake dept

Given the renewed attention in the Richard O'Dwyer case, it's good to see UK MP Tom Watson speak out eloquently against the extradition. Watson hits on a bunch of good points, starting with the fact that O'Dwyer was "hung out to dry" by UK politicians who don't seem to even care about the details here. He notes that the response is clearly disproportionate and then gets to the heart of the matter:

"Somewhere behind this case lie the powerful vested interests of the content industry. If they succeed in exercising their lobbying might by forcing the extradition of an able student to face trial in America, it will further undermine public confidence in an important treaty designed to combat terrorism.

"But let's also be honest about what is going on at the heart of this case: a generation for whom the net is not a 'new' technology are being hung out by an older generation of lawmakers who do not understand the new reality of the connected digital planet.

"Mr O'Dwyer's situation can be sorted out with common sense at the top of the UK government and US administration. But how many more bright youngsters will have their lives turned upside down because we haven't reached a new copyright settlement that understands the internet is here to stay?"

Of course, it won't just undermine confidence in the extradition treaty, but also in copyright law. After all, O'Dwyer linked to content all over the web, rather than hosting it himself -- and a nearly identical site was already found legal in the UK (which certainly suggests a lack of "willful" infringement, which is necessary for a criminal copyright infringement charge in the US). Either way, it's good to see more high profile people -- especially those in government, realize that the attempt to extradite O'Dwyer is a travesty.

Filed Under: extradition, richard o'dwyer, tom watson, uk, willful infringement

Jimmy Wales Campaigns To Stop The Despicable Attempt To Extradite & Try Richard O 'Dwyer

from the speak-up dept

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is speaking out against the attempt to extradite Richard O'Dwyer from the UK to the US. As we've been detailing over the past year, O'Dwyer ran a site called TVShack.net, that was a search engine for TV shows. It pointed people to the results, some of which were authorized -- and some of which were infringing. But, of course, a search engine should not reasonably be blamed for the results in points to. In fact, the admin of an extremely similar site in the UK, TV-Links, had faced criminal charges in the UK, but was found not guilty, because just linking to infringing content is not a crime. And yet... the US has pushed really hard to extradite O'Dwyer, and tragically, the UK has approved this charade.

Wales recently met with O'Dwyer and learned the details of the story, and was quite reasonably horrified:

Given the thin case against him, it is an outrage that he is being extradited to the US to face felony charges. No US citizen has ever been brought to the UK for alleged criminal activity on US soil. There is a disparity here that ought to raise concerns at the highest levels of government in both the US and UK.

From the beginning of the internet, we have seen a struggle between the interests of the "content industry" and the general public. Due to heavy lobbying and much money lavished on politicians, until very recently the content industry has won every battle. Internet users handed the industry its first major defeat earlier this year with the epic Sopa-Pipa protests over planned copyright laws that culminated in a widespread internet blackout and 10 million people contacting the US Congress to voice their opposition.

O'Dwyer is the human face of that battle, and if he's extradited and convicted, he will bear the human cost.

Wales has set up an online petition addressed to the UK government seeking to stop the extradition of O'Dwyer. Who knows if it will actually have any impact, but getting more people to speak out about this ridiculous overreach by ICE and the Justice Department would be a good thing.

Filed Under: doj, extradition, ice, jimmy wales, richard o'dwyer, tv links, tvshack, uk

New Zealand's High Court Steps Into Extradition Fight Over Kim Dotcom

from the not-so-simple dept

As the Justice Department continues to pretend there's nothing strange at all about its highly questionable tactics in shutting down Megaupload and having its executives arrested, the courts are still struggling with the details. A few weeks back, we noted that a judge in New Zealand rejected the US's demand that New Zealand merely rubberstamp an extradition order to the US, despite there being numerous questions over the case itself and whether or not extradition is appropriate. As part of that, the judge also ordered the US Attorneys to hand over the evidence they're using to make the case against Dotcom and his colleagues, such that they can properly respond to the evidence. The US, as you might expect has gone absolutely ballistic about this, insisting that such an effort is impossible -- and that "it would take at least two months" to get the evidence together.

Of course, to some of us, that suggests that the DOJ hasn't yet looked at the evidence -- and thus it shut down the company and arrested its staff first, without even knowing if a crime had been committed.

Either way, that months-long delay presented a problem, since New Zealand had scheduled the extradition hearing for August 6th, and the Megaupload legal team deserved some time with the evidence to formulate its defense. The latest, however, is that New Zealand's High Court has agreed to an "urgent review" of the original ruling. The court also told the US to start the process of putting together the evidence to hand over to Dotcom's lawyers, but that it can wait until the High Court has reviewed the case before actually handing them over.

No matter what, this is once again showing the US's hubris in this case -- assuming it could waltz into New Zealand, with highly questionable evidence, shut down a company, and extradite the executives to the US without anyone asking questions. With each move in this case, more questions are raised about the competence of the DOJ staff who worked on this case, led by Neil MacBride -- a former "anti-piracy VP" for the copyright industries, who may have let his biases and previous (and future?) employers' interests get the best of him.

Filed Under: copyright, doj, evidence, extradition, high court, kim dotcom, neil macbride, new zealand, us
Companies: megaupload

New Zealand Judge Won't Rubberstamp Kim Dotcom Extradition; Orders US To Share Evidence

from the not-so-easy dept

Once again, it appears that the US prosecution of Kim Dotcom and the other Megaupload folks suggests that US federal prosecutors have been acting like they have a slam dunk case, whereas every time anyone digs into the details, all of the important infrastructure is missing. The latest is that the US seemed to assume that as long as they kept going on and on about the "mega conspiracy" and the "money laundering" involved (even if that "laundering" appeared to be normal payments to service providers), that New Zealand would rubber stamp the extradition request without reviewing any of the evidence.

No such luck.

The New Zealand judge is raising significant questions about the US's case while also ordering the US government to provide copies of the evidence it is using to Dotcom's lawyers -- something the US insisted was not necessary. What's clear is that the US really thought that New Zealand would just roll over and hand over Dotcom because they sprinkled the indictment with scary phrases like money laundering and conspiracy. But, as the judge notes, the US seems to be taking a somewhat extraordinary interpretation of copyright infringement -- using civil copyright infringement as the basis for a criminal copyright charge... and then pumping up that criminal copyright charge into conspiracy and money laundering charges. And that's important, because New Zealand won't extradite someone if the case is really just about copyright infringement.

The distinction between civil and criminal copyright infringement is an important one -- and confusion over this point is one that the US government has been relying on in seizing various domain names for the past couple of years. It's good to see that the judge here was not at all confused by this, and seemed to get to the heart of the matter pretty quickly.

As I have already observed this is a case that is more complex than many. There is a complex factual matrix and the justiciable issues are complicated by the fact that the United States is attempting to utilise concepts from the civil copyright context as a basis for application of criminal copyright liability which necessitates a consideration of principles such as the dual use of technology or what they be described as significant non infringing uses.

The existence of criminal copyright charges is a keystone to providing the unlawful conduct element of the racketeering, money laundering and wire fraud charges...

Separately, the judge was not at all persuaded that it would be too difficult to do discovery for the extradition phase of this case, because the evidence is all in electronic form. Yes, the US argued that going through a discovery process to share evidence with Dotcom and his lawyers would be too difficult. But the judge is having none of that:

During the course of arguments the issue was raised as to the difficulty of effecting disclosure given that so much material is in electronic format. During the course of argument I reminded counsel of recent amendments to the High Court Rules relating to electronic disclosure and what is a widespread and growing practice of the use of computer equipment and specialised search techniques to swiftly recover relevant material, to eliminate irrelevant or repetitive material and to utilise a number of search techniques including keynote searching, concept searching, clustering technology, predictive coding or document prioritising technology, email threading and near duplicate identification. It may not be necessary under the circumstances to engage, at this stage of the process, in native file review but there are procedures available and that are utilised within the civil arena that will enable the prompt disclosure of relevant information.

Perhaps I'm mis-translating my New Zealand, but I sense a certain hint of sarcasm in that statement. The US government is really claiming that finding the relevant documents for disclosure is too difficult because it's in electronic format? Really? Thankfully, it appears that the judge in New Zealand isn't as technologically clueless as US prosecutors expected him to be.

Filed Under: extradition, kim dotcom, new zealand
Companies: megaupload

Facebook Blocking Stories About Richard O'Dwyer's Fight Against Extradition To The US

from the sad dept

Well, this is unfortunate, though Facebook does have a history of somewhat arbitrarily deciding what you can and can't talk about. A few years ago, we noted that it had blocked any link to The Pirate Bay -- even if it had nothing to do with infringing material. A year later, we discovered an even more unfortunate situation, in that it wouldn't allow any mention of Power.com -- a company it was in a legal dispute with. However, it keeps getting worse. We've written multiple times about Richard O'Dwyer's fight to prevent being extradited to the US for running a site, TVshack.net, which links to TV shows -- some of which were infringing. As we noted, there are all sorts of important questions being discussed around this case, both about copyright law and the US's influence over UK courts.

Apparently, Facebook doesn't want you discussing any of that.

The Guardian's James Ball wrote an interesting article about how some UK politicians are fighting to stop the extradition. It's a good article. But, you won't find out about it on Facebook apparently. The story details how Tim Farron, president of the LibDems, in the UK has called the extradition approval "ludicrous" and has asked the government to reconsider.

However, as James Losey discovered, Facebook won't let you post about it -- calling the article "spammy or unsafe." Specifically, it appears that (as with TPB) Facebook is blocking any and all mention of TVShack.net. However, Facebook's spam implementation is so stupidly programmed that it can't figure out that this is a story about TVShack.net in the well-respected Guardian newspaper, and not a direct link to TVShack.net. And, of course, merely linking to TVShack.net isn't against the law, so it's bizarre, obnoxious and stupid for Facebook to be blocking all such links in the first place. Finally, since the US government seized TVshack.net nearly two years ago, I don't think the site is really that unsafe any more, unless you don't trust the government to keep its server clean (which, actually, might be reasonable). Either way, shame on Facebook for hamfisted "filtering" which blocks important and legitimate discussions. Update: Facebook has fixed this particular issue, and now lets people post that story, but it's unclear what the overall rules are.

Filed Under: extradition, filtering, richard o'dwyer, tvshack, uk

UK Decides Hollywood, US Gov't's Interests More Important Than Own Citizens; Extradites Student For Linking

from the sad dept

In January, a judge said that the UK could extradite student Richard O'Dwyer to the US to face criminal copyright infringement charges for the "crime" of linking to streaming videos hosted elsewhere -- something that had already been found legal in the UK multiple times. This is pretty important, because for it to be criminal infringement, it has to be willful, and if sites that were nearly identical to O'Dwyer's TVShack.net were found legal in his home country, where he lived and where he operated the site, it's difficult to see how there's anything willful at all.

Furthermore, since he's only linking there isn't direct infringement, only the possibility of secondary infringement. Now, there are aiding and abetting laws, but it would have to be aiding and abetting of criminal copyright infringement and that would require the users of TVShack to be guilty of criminal infringement -- meaning that they were profiting from willful infringement. And that doesn't seem likely either. There are so many holes in the case it's difficult to understand why ICE and DHS are ruining the life of a UK student with no clear legal basis.

Either way, as the UK government continues to kowtow to the US entertainment industry, the Secretary of State has taken the court's initial okay and approved the extradition. This is really damning for the UK government. Given the growing concerns about the overreach of the entertainment industry to take away basic freedoms, sending Richard O'Dwyer across the Atlantic on bogus charges just so the MPAA can stick his head on a pike somewhere isn't going to go over very well.

Filed Under: copyright, doj, extradition, ice, jurisdiction, richard o'dwyer
Companies: tv-links, tvshack

Would The US Extradite UK Blogger For Linking To Works In The Public Domain In Other Countries?

from the insanity-of-today's-copyright-laws dept

James Firth has an interesting post, talking about some of the more ridiculous consequences of current US law enforcement interpretation of copyright law. Looking at the case of Richard O'Dwyer, the computer science student that the US is getting closer to extraditing to the US to face criminal copyright infringement charges for merely linking to infringing works (something that had already been found legal in the UK multiple times), Firth takes it to its logical ends. He points out that George Orwell's works, Animal Farm and 1984 have gone into the public domain in South Africa, Canada or Australia. And thus, there are completely legal free copies of such works online. But they're only legal in those countries. In the US and the UK, both remain under the yoke of copyright thanks to copyright extensions.

This leads to a simple fear. If he merely pointed people to the location of these completely legal versions of the work, he would now be just as "guilty" as Richard O'Dwyer under the interpretation of the US Justice Department. After all, he is using a .com domain (American property, according to the stretched interpretation of the DOJ) to link to works that technically infringe in both the UK -- where he is -- and the US, where the DOJ has suddenly become the US entertainment industry's private police force.

This is creating a truly chilling effect on speech around the globe. The public domain is the public domain for a purpose, and it's somewhat insane to think that US actions are now chilling the mere discussion of where public domain works in other countries can be obtained completely legally in those countries.

Filed Under: copyright, extradition, james firth, linking, public domain, richard o'dwyer

US Can Extradite UK Student For Copyright Infringement, Despite Site Being Legal In The UK

from the scary-scary-stuff dept

Want to understand just how insane things may get under SOPA/PIPA? Just take a look at what's already happening under today's laws. Back in 2010, one of the first websites that Homeland Security's ICE (Immigrations & Customs Enforcement) group seized was TVShack.net. TVShack was a site that collected links to TV shows. Certainly, many of those shows were likely to be infringing -- but TVShack did not host the content at all, it merely linked to it. Richard O'Dwyer, the guy who ran the site, was a student building an interesting project over in the UK. However, the US Department of Justice decided that he was not only a hardened criminal, but one who needed to be tried on US soil. Thus, it began extradition procedures. Even worse, nearly identical sites in the UK had already been found legal multiple times -- with the court noting that having links to some infringing content was certainly not criminal copyright infringement. That makes things even more ridiculous, because extradition is only supposed to be allowed for activities that are criminal in both the US and the UK.

But, seriously, think about how insane this is. With all the problems in the world, the US was spending time trying to extradite a UK student to the US, because he set up a site that had links to some infringing material. Is this really the best use of US law enforcement's time?

O'Dwyer has been fighting the extradition attempt... but today, unfortunately, a UK judge ruled against him.

District Judge Purdy said in his ruling: "There are said to be direct consequences of criminal activity by Richard O'Dwyer in the USA albeit by him never leaving the north of England.

"Such a state of affairs does not demand a trial here if the competent UK authorities decline to act and does, in my judgment, permit one in the USA."

He added: "I reject all challenges advanced to this request. No bars or other challenge being raised or found, I send the case to the Secretary of State."

O'Dwyer can and almost certainly will appeal this decision. But this is just ridiculous. And this is under existing laws. Just think what happens under SOPA/PIPA -- which are even more targeted at foreign sites. Do we really want the US government going around the world, dragging kids from their homes and taking them back to the US to throw them in jail... because they set up a web page with some links on it?

Filed Under: copyright, doj, extradition, ice, jurisdiction, pipa, protect ip, richard o'dwyer, sopa, uk, us
Companies: tv-links, tvshack

Justice Department Refuses To Give Up; Still Going After Peter Adekeye In Vindictive Lawsuit

from the please-stop dept

Wow! We keep pointing out how bills like Senator Amy Klobuchar's S.978 anti-streaming bill and Senator Patrick Leahy's PROTECT IP Act will be abused by US law enforcement, and we keep being told that those bills aren't "intended" to be used the way they could be. I think part of the problem is that people don't realize how the Justice Department and US Attorneys will sometimes stretch and twist the law just to go after someone.

Last month, we wrote about the absolutely ridiculous case by the US against former Cisco engineer Peter Adekeye. The details have to be read to be believed, but most of it only came to light because a Canadian judge absolutely blasted both Cisco and the US Attorneys for what clearly appeared to be an unnecessarily vindictive criminal prosecution against Adekeye because he filed an antitrust lawsuit against Cisco, after Cisco tried to block third party companies (such as one of Adekeye's) from accessing necessary patches to service certain Cisco equipment.

The whole story was horrifying, but we thought it ended in May when the judge let Adekeye go and gave the Justice Department a pretty big slap for its actions. But... no. Slashdot points us to the news that the Justice Department has just unveiled a new indictment against Adekeye over the same issue: basically someone at Cisco gave Adekeye a login to download patches, and he did exactly that. This is not, in any way, a matter that should involve the Justice Department. The judge in Canada made that clear. The story about Adekeye shows the Justice Department acting for bad reasons -- either incompetence, corruption or malice (pick any two!). And you would think that someone there might think twice before pushing ahead with bogus prosecution against Adekeye (who's finally back in Switzerland after being stuck in Canada for a year), but that's not how the US works.

And this is why we get very afraid when Congress looks to pass broad new legislation that may impact criminal statutes and the kinds of things that US Attorneys can charge people over. I'd like to believe that US Attorneys are good people trying to stop and punish crimes, but we've seen too many cases where it appears that their actions are incredibly questionable. I'm still hopeful that it's just a few bad seeds among the ranks of US Attorneys, but if we keep seeing stories like this...

Filed Under: antitrust, canada, extradition, immigration, justice department, peter adekeye, prosecution