TV Shack Owner Faces US Extradition Over Pirate Streaming Website

In the ongoing fight against online piracy, a UK student and former owner of the TV Shack website faces extradition to the US. A London court has ruled that he should face charges of copyright infringement as TV Shack linked to pirate streams of movies and TV Shows, a court ruled yesterday.

TV Shack, a landmark case?

Student Richard O’Dwyer, owned the website TV Shack which provided direct links to streaming content. The case for the defense is that the website was not actually hosting any content but merely linking to it.

O’Dwyer who made £150,000 in advertising when the site was at it’s peak argued that what he did was not dissimilar to what Google also do. When asked if other sites should face prosecution said, “You should ask Google the same question, on a much grander scale.”

The 23 year old said at the court, that he felt like a “guinea pig” for the US justice system and would contest the ruling. If he is sent to trial in the US, he will become the first person extradited to the US on streaming piracy charges. And if he gets a convinction it will result in a custodial sentence.

TV Shack was shut down along with a number of other streaming websites, back in the summer of 2010. The move was part of a crackdown on online piracy, as finding an illegal stream became as easy as a couple of mouse clicks. O’Dwyer was arrested in September 2010 but subsequently bailed. The extradition application was made in March 2011.

O’Dwyer claimed that the website was helpful in his studies, and that he, “didn’t even think it would get that popular to be honest”. Speaking at the court his defiant mother, Julia O’Dwyer said, “He’s not going there for a trial, whatever happens. He isn’t going, they can get stuffed.”

It probably did’nt help his case that after being shut down, he started up a new site at a similar address and is said to have posted ton the front page, “F**k the police”.

District Judge, Quentin Purdy said that although O’Dwyer could not be prosecuted in the UK, he ruled that an extradition could go ahead saying, “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.”

This case still has a long way to go before any extradition can happen, and his lawyer has already claimed that it infringes his clients human rights and they are expected to appeal.

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One Response to “TV Shack Owner Faces US Extradition Over Pirate Streaming Website”

Richard on January 15th, 2012 at 7:54 am

Extradition of British subjects is rarely out of the news, particularly with regard to cases involving the United States and in a more general debate with regard to European arrest warrants. Most of the media coverage is based on the legal issues involved, the ability of countries to deliver what we consider to be a fair trial, the level of evidence or lack of it that is required to enable extradition and the perceived inbalance in the UK / US extradition treaty.
However in all this coverage there is one word that does not appear and it is possibly the most important one of all, ‘sovereignty’.
We are a sovereign nation with a well established democratic tradition, where citizens and visitors to the country are subject to the laws of the land and can be held to account by the judicial system within the UK. If a person in this country breaks the laws within the United Kingdom then they should be held to account for their action. If that person has left the country whether they are a UK citizen or not, they should be where possible extradited back to this country to be prosecuted.
Likewise if a British subject is overseas and commits an offence whilst abroad, they should be extradited back to that country after due process.
The problem is that living in the modern world, it is possible for British Citizens to never set foot outside of the country and to act in such a way that they are breaking the law in another country and find themselves arrested and subject to extradition. This is where we should all have a problem. Within our own country, we are subject to the laws of the country. The important word is ‘subject’. As a British subject we are, to quote the dictionary definition, ‘under dominion, rule, or authority, of a sovereign, state, or some governing power; owing allegiance or obedience to the state.’
The sovereign state that we owe allegiance or obedience to, has to be by its very nature our own country. We do not owe allegiance or obedience to any other country and therefore a British subject should not be held accountable for acts committed whilst in the United Kingdom by any other country but should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law within this country.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick, has said “The question as to whether to prosecute must be for the prosecuting authorities and it follows that the question of where to prosecute must also be for them. I cannot see how it can conceivably be resolved by a judge”. A similar viewpoint was taken by the government review into extradition led by Sir Scott Baker.
It is very easy to get lost in the mire of legal argument when what is needed is the establishment of a set of simple principals, ‘As a British Citizen I am subject to the laws of this country, if I travel abroad, I am also subject to the laws of any country I visit so long as I remain within their borders. If I commit an offence whilst in another country I may be extradited back to that country for trial.’
The question of where to prosecute is therefore a simple one, where was the person when they comitted the offence. If the answer is in the United Kingdom then they should be prosecuted in the United Kingdom.
It is worthy of note that when it comes to protecting their sovereignty three of the 120 signatories to the International Criminal Court responsible for prosecuting individuals of war crimes and genocide have withdrawn their signatures Israel, Sudan and the United States.
Surely if the United States considers that they should be the prosecutor for US citizens who may commit war crimes, then the United Kingdom, can withdraw it’s signature from a treaty that allows someone sat in front of a computer in the United Kingdom to be extradited and tried in the United States for copyright infringement.