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Richard O’Dwyer, one of the high-profile tech extradition cases the UK legal system has struggled to handle of late, has avoided US legal proceedings and the threat of jail time thanks to arranging a deal to visit the US voluntarily and pay a token amount of compensation.
The founder of the TV Shack site, which US authorities claim earned him around £150k in advertising while it was up and running, had previously seen plans to extradite him given the green light by home secretary Theresa May. However, a deal has been brokered that will see him travel to the US in the next couple of weeks, where he’ll pay “a small sum” in compensation and agree to steer clear of copyright abuses in the future.
Once that’s taken care of, his case will return to the High Court to be closed. [BBC]
Image credit: Passport stamp from Shutterstock
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Yeah just read this on the BBC. It says voluntarily but I think he may not come back
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That old trick, eh?
Well, the US is notoriously pragmatic in getting what they want. I better be careful though, any suggestive libels I make could see me in Guantanamo Bay in a orange boiler suit.
I can see why he would choose this route, but things like this really need to be done in a court, by competent lawyers, to;
1. Set a precedent, this should apply to ALL sites that link to infringing material – Google et all
2. So that those concerned understand the difference to linking to copyrighted material, and actually distributing it
3. Tell the US where they can go stick it
Google do not set out with the intention of profiting from distribution of links to infringing material. That their code, designed to parse websites and return results based on user input, happens to find these sites does not mean that it is Google’s aim to aid copyright infringement.
O’Dwyer, however, made it his prerogative to gather a collection of links, attract users with the allure of easily finding material that broke international copyright laws and to reap profit from doing so. The motives behind Google and O’Dwyer (and likely the methods employed) are considerably different.
So they don’t make any money from their adverts that are shown?
I don’t think they are /that/ different, they both make money from listing links.
I get that O’Dwyer only shows links to pirated material, but still, they are just that, links.
Google’s revenue comes from adverts on legitimate services (their search engine, email web clients and such like). If Google was providing advertising space on sites hosting or linking to infringing material then you could make a valid comparison.
They might just be links, but providing easy access to them is reducing revenue flow to the creators of the works while directing it into the pocket of those who host such websites. Hardly a fair system that benefits creative arts.
What bothers me about this case is that he is getting away without a criminal record. Anton Vickerman, who was in a very similar situation, ended up seeing 4 years in jail. I guess that is the difference having the backing of Wikipedia makes.