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[Copyright and Justice] US to UK: All Your Laws Are Belong to Us
Astaereth
In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
You may already be familiar with the case of Richard O'Dwyer, a UK citizen whose site, TVShack, linked to illegal content, drawing the attention of US anti-copyright organizations. Here's the Guardian on the result:
O'Dwyer's extradition was approved in January; he is currently appealing.
You may not be familiar with the current situation of Anton Vickerman, a UK citizen whose site, SurfTheChannel, linked to illegal content, drawing the attention of US anti-copyright organizations. Here's the Chicago Tribune on the result:
Vickerman has posted a 20+ page document on his site, as well as corroborating evidence, claiming that the investigation and trial was a sham from start to finish, with FACT, the MPAA's organization in Britain, violating his rights, tampering with or outright fabricating evidence, and using a biased judge and corrupt system to attain an unlawful conviction. The whole document is dense but worth the read if you feel like being angry today.
Vickerman posted that shortly before he was sentenced to 4 years in a British prison, this past Tuesday (August 14th).
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I would be interested in discussion on the moralities and legalities of these cases specifically and any new ones that may arise. More broadly, I think the important question is how, within both countries and internationally, we should act in regard to the borderless issue of copyright infringement and sites like these. Is it justified to prosecute citizens of one country for harming corporate citizens of another country? Is there a better way to do this?
At the very least, it seems that the UK has screwed over their own sovereignty in regards to America, if UK citizens who commit no crime under UK law can be extradited and prosecuted for actions that harmed American corporations.
NB: This is NOT a place to discuss the general ethics of piracy or torrenting. If you're about to post something that has or could lead to the phrase "but information wants to be free, man," don't.
The Guardian wrote:Richard O'Dwyer, a computing student at Sheffield Hallam University, faces a potential 10-year term in a US jail despite never having been to America or using web servers based in the country. When still a teenager O'Dwyer set up a website, TVShack, which posted links to pirated material. It did not directly host any files, which meant, according to the student's lawyers, that it acted as little more than a Google-type search engine and did not breach copyright.
The defence team pointed out that the only UK prosecution of a similar site, TV-Links, ended last year with the case being thrown out.
But the district judge, Quentin Purdy, ruled that O'Dwyer should nonetheless face trial in the US. "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," Purdy said. "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."
O'Dwyer's extradition was approved in January; he is currently appealing.
You may not be familiar with the current situation of Anton Vickerman, a UK citizen whose site, SurfTheChannel, linked to illegal content, drawing the attention of US anti-copyright organizations. Here's the Chicago Tribune on the result:
The Tribune wrote:Anton Vickerman, 38, whose surfthechannel.com had 400,000 users a day in 2009, is the first Brit to be jailed in the U.K. for online piracy.
At its peak, the service ranked among the top 500 most popular websites in the world.
He was sentenced on Tuesday at Newcastle Crown Court, in North East England, after being convicted in June on two counts of conspiracy to defraud by facilitating copyright infringement. The conviction carried a maximum penalty of 10 years.
"This case can leave no-one in any doubt that Internet piracy is controlled by criminals whose profits threaten the ongoing reinvestment in our creative industries," said David Puttnam, president of the Film Distributors Assn.
Fact is a trade organization backed by the U.K.'s main distributors, exhibitors and broadcasters, plus the Hollywood studios.
Vickerman has posted a 20+ page document on his site, as well as corroborating evidence, claiming that the investigation and trial was a sham from start to finish, with FACT, the MPAA's organization in Britain, violating his rights, tampering with or outright fabricating evidence, and using a biased judge and corrupt system to attain an unlawful conviction. The whole document is dense but worth the read if you feel like being angry today.
Vickerman wrote:I was convicted of “Conspiracy to defraud the movie industry through the facilitation of copyright infringement” on June 24 2012 after an eight week trial. A trial that was brought not by the UK state prosecutor, the Crown Prosecution Service, but by a private prosecutor, the Federation Against Copyright Theft Limited. For those that are unaware FACT Ltd is the UK regional office of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the same organization that is behind the attempted extradition of Richard O´Dwyer who based his own website TVShack on STC. As will become clear as you read this piece I consider FACT Ltd and the MPAA to be dangerous vigilante organizations that have no place in prosecuting UK citizens never mind conducting up to fifteen illegal surveillance operations every month on those same citizens. FACT Ltd are a private limited company staffed almost entirely by former police and trading standards officers most of which FACT Ltd have identified as willing to go “that extra mile” in their fight against “copyright thieves.” In other words there is a reason that FACT Ltd employs the individuals they do (be that investigators, lawyers or executive officers) – because they are willing to cheat, lie and break the law for their employer. Essentially FACT Ltd is the MPAA´s private police force operating within the UK. But more of that later.
After my conviction many stories appeared in the press regarding the “facts” of my case which I found odd as not one journalist had bothered to attend the trial during those eight weeks. I later found out that these so called facts had been passed to various journalists in a 1600 word press release by FACT Ltd the contents of which were then dutifully parroted by lazy journalists who couldn’t even be bothered to check if what they were reporting was accurate. Publications such as the Daily Mail and my local paper the Evening Chronicle actually just copied and pasted the FACT Ltd press release en masse with only minor alterations. Such is the state of investigative/responsible journalism nowadays. It is because of these inaccurate articles and lies that I felt the need to give my side of the story so that publications that are not as lazy or sycophantic to FACT Ltd would have the true facts at their disposal should they want to report what has really happened here. I can but hope.
Vickerman posted that shortly before he was sentenced to 4 years in a British prison, this past Tuesday (August 14th).
--
I would be interested in discussion on the moralities and legalities of these cases specifically and any new ones that may arise. More broadly, I think the important question is how, within both countries and internationally, we should act in regard to the borderless issue of copyright infringement and sites like these. Is it justified to prosecute citizens of one country for harming corporate citizens of another country? Is there a better way to do this?
At the very least, it seems that the UK has screwed over their own sovereignty in regards to America, if UK citizens who commit no crime under UK law can be extradited and prosecuted for actions that harmed American corporations.
NB: This is NOT a place to discuss the general ethics of piracy or torrenting. If you're about to post something that has or could lead to the phrase "but information wants to be free, man," don't.
Astaereth on
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Posts
The main problem with UK defamation laws is that under them, the truth is not an absolute defense, unlike in the US.
Well, that's depressing. While I actually think it's a good thing for orphaned works to be removed from copyright protections, so that people are encouraged to bring them back into print and create new works from them, the problem with that law appears to be its definition of "orphaned". Theirs sounds more like a Fagin deciding that if the child's parents aren't right there at the moment, the kid can be whisked away and forced to learn pickpocketing.