British student faces extradition to U.S. due to copyright issues

A twenty-three-year-old British computer student faces possible extradition to the U.S. for linking to copyrighted content on his website. The student, Richard O'Dwyer, was accused of copyright infringement after setting up the website TV Shack, which had links to thousands of films and TV shows, but did not directly host them.

via news.slashdot.org

And here's why the U.S. can do this:

Back when Tony Blair was in power he signed an extradition treaty with the US which means that if a DA files charges against someone, they can be extradited from the UK. Our Parliament ratified the treaty without inserting a reciprocal clause in the legislation making it dependent on your congress honouring the treaty.

Obviously your congress decided that having US citizens extradited just because a prosecutor in the UK fancied it them was mental, so they didn't ratify that clause. That leaves us with the current imbalance where your criminal justice system can essentially pull anyone out of the UK for any reason.

This shit's gotten so far out of hand it's not even worth an it's-so-sad-all-you-can-do-is-laugh laugh.

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