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UPFRONTS 2013: The Overachievers 
A 23-year-old British student faces possible extradition to the United States for trial on charges of copyright infringement for hosting a website that pointed visitors to illegal download sites. Richard O’Dwyer’s website TV Shack listed links to other websites where users could access movies and TV shows but did not host any content himself. O’Dwyer, a college student, said he undertook TV Shack as a project to improve his skills and job marketability. O’Dwyer sold $230,000 worth of advertising, which he says was necessary because of the massive server fees. “When you’ve got a website with over 300,000 people a month visiting, there’s a need for infrastructure to support that.” O’Dwyer’s attorney said the young man had done nothing more than Google or Yahoo search engines. Ben Cooper, an extradition lawyer, described O’Dwyer as a “guinea pig” because no British citizen has ever been extradited to the United States for a copyright offense. Nonetheless, a London judge upheld the extradition request and sent it to Britain’s Home Secretary for a final decision. O’Dwyer plans to appeal.
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This is WRONG
This is not wrong
this jerk is the reason why hollywood is in trouble,
I can’t wait for SOPA to pass,
Even the MPAA’s own research concluded piracy helps Hollywood.
So, no, you’re completely wrong.
Hollywood isn’t in trouble, any more than it was in the 1970′s when it tried to make VCR’s illegal on the grounds that they would precipitate “the end of Hollywood.” Publishers said similar things about their industry and public libraries, and later, photocopiers. Hollywood is just having a problem accepting something that traditional manufacturing businesses reconciled themselves to a long time ago: no supply chain from creator to consumer is perfect, and there is always going to be the phenomenon of “a few boxes falling off the back of a truck.”
I agree. Cause churning out the same regurgitated, story-less, rebooted crap time and time again sure ain’t it.
How is this WRONG? The guy committed a crime. He made $230K from that crime. He is being extradited to stand trial for that crime. Seems a pretty good move to me, and should make others think twice about facilitating the theft of copyright.
It is definitely wrong to steal copyrighted material. I side with the copyright owner at all times. Their livelihood is linked to their ownership of materials that other people want to see. That’s capitalism. And frankly, one of the few products we have left in this country is intellectual property. If we don’t protect it, it becomes worthless.
Seriously?
This is what the United States of America has become?
Shame to the UK for falling in line, too.
If Zamfabistan accused someone in the US of this, and said “We want to extridite”, we’d tell Zamfabistan to go to hell.
the federal prosecutors bringing this action should be disbarred.
Seriously, what are they charging him with? If what he does is a crime, then Google and many others should be charged as well.
And when are people going to realize you can’t fight piracy this way.
True, but Google can purchase their innocence.
So, the United States has criminal jurisdiction over crimes committed by British citizens in Britain? British citizens are now subject to United States law?
Hollywood is not Loosing money over this type of thing. That’s just an escuse. Most of the people who do this are the type that wouldn’t have had money to buy tickets to whatever movie they’re downloading in the first place. Copy right infregment is wrong, but the amount of money hollywood looses over it is minimal. Anyway, he didn’t do a crime. He just put links to the sites, he didn’t do any copyright infringement himself. By that logic sites like google should go to jail.
Also, Copy infringement is already illegal. All SOPA would do is make it so 13 year old girls who post videos of themselves lip singing to their favorite beiber song could be put on trial to.
And remember that most of the content people are illegally downloading is not available anywhere else. Studios have kept a tight leash on much of their product, not releasing it online or into syndication or on DVD.
In this day and age there is no reason for every single surviving show NOT to be available online. Even if we have to pay for it. AND there is no excuse of us in the US not to be able to see TV from around the world. And the limited number of series available here (like only a handful from the UK) is heavily edited. Stupid!
Instead of pushing SOPA, studios and companies need to start rethinking how they are using their product. It is time for a major change and the first studio to do it will be the first to successfully move into the 21st century.
This young man did nothing wrong. He did not host content. He simply told people where to find it. Nothing is illegal about that.
And he is not a US citizen. I don’t understand how the US thinks it has any type of jurisdiction in this case. If he were being charged by the UK it would be a different story. BUT clearly they have refused to prosecute.
The US needs to grow up and stop acting like a spoiled rotten little brat.
Of course he did wrong.
He helped thieves steal and sell content – aiding and abetting.
He also earned – you seem to have missed that – $230 000 in advertising income while he was helping to destroy artists, movie producers, production crews’ business.
Maybe you are fine with destroying jobs and stealing other people’s work and endangering their existence.
As long as we close eyes to such parasites, we will lose jobs and lives to that cyber scum.
Maybe you should stop acting like a spoiled, little brat who wants everything for free. Except your own work, I’m sure, that has to be paid.
Grow up, kiddo, or grow a brain!
As the article mentions, what he did was no different than what Google does, but you don’t see the AG knocking on their door with arrest warrants, do you? It’s like the old joke, “PETA hates fur wearers more than leather wearers, because it’s easier to attack rich old women than biker gangs.”
You are right.
Google needs to be pointed to the fact that it is aiding and abetting.
I’d love to see a big lawsuit against google with a multi-billion dollar damage payment.
Sopa will not pass in this form, as it’s probably not well enough defined and could make too many people criminals.
But a revised version will pass.
You don’t prosecute the Yellow Pages for publishing ads from escort services, so you shouldn’t prosecute a link aggregator for publishing links to download sites. Go after the eventual custodian of the pirated content if you must, but this is ridiculous.
Recent articles show that the home of one Nicolas Sarkozy has been a constant copyright infringer. Additionally, the Canadian Parliament has been downloading massive amounts of material as well. Drag them over the border and waterboard them all. America, where justice is blind, but open to suggestion.
It’s time to make sure that stealing digital content is a crime just as stealing a car.
And that there’s the fact of “aiding and abetting”, which is equally punishable.
If we can’t shut down foreign sites that steal our work we are allowing save havens for cyber thieves, and endangering our creative industries.
I’d love to see people punished who steal photos of websites as well, and copy content off blogs to create advertising income with stolen goods.
Lock them up.
If the American jury thinks O’Dwyer’s likely sentence is excessive, it can acquit him regardless of the “law” and the facts, and the acquittal is binding. It’s called “jury nullification”. Spread the word!
Those of you foolish enough to be in favour of this…
Do you truly understand the ramifications of SOPA being passed? Do you know that they’re allowed to shut down ANY WEBSITE that uses images THEY perceive to be copyrighted?
This is a case of mega-corporations trying to control the online market, and it’ll stunt the development of NEW artists trying to break out and be noticed. I personally don’t think he’s doing anything wrong, no more than any other search engine. And if you want to talk about Capitalism? He’s intelligent enough to CAPITALIZE on having ads on his website as are many other businesses. So don’t even start with that.
Websites like Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and possibly even Google will be SHUT DOWN because SOPA DECIDED…without REASONABLE proof that they used quote “COPYRIGHT” material.
Any of you who support this bill, I strongly suggest you look into EXACTLY what this means and it’s long-term implications.
The film industry is losing no profit from this, and the people trying to pass this bill don’t know a single thing about how the internet works. You are infringing on copyright EVERY time you share clips from a movie, post a photo from a film or by a photographer or graphic designer onto your Facebook or Youtube account.
Furthermore, I am ASTOUNDED by the stupidity of suggesting that the United States has jurisdiction over BRITISH law. Are you utterly retarded? If one country is allowed jurisdiction over what citizens in another country to…then we may as well forgo having laws individuals to any country, Britain may as well become another US “State”.
No, This is completely ridiculous. And what worries me most is those in favour of SOPA are those who know the least about what it entails, or how the internet itself actually functions.
Instead, we should be focussing on innovation, not trying to show down the internet because SOME people steal copyrighted data. An ENTIRE website should NOT be shit down because ONE user is doing so.
hmm… copyright infringement ??? where do hollywood get most of their ideas from ?
and the usa has NO juristiction in england. this case is purely a political “test” if you like , i doubt it will pass the home office.
beggining to sound like a trey parker and matt stone film to you ??
Are you mad, he comitted no crime in the UK, his servers were in the uk, he was in the UK everything was the UK.
Also he didn’t give out american copyrighted material, he just told other people where it was. Therefore he stole nothing, he did nothing more than google, yahoo, bing, etc
No US crime has been comitted on US soil, or against US companies by this man.
Judging from this case, the US has juristiction over the whole internet and can therefore arrest anyone in any country if they have broken US law.
mfw when i’m not in the us and don’t have to abide by US law.