topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Friday March 29, 2024, 8:53 am
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Author Topic: Petition with Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales + Demand Progress - re Richard O'Dwyer  (Read 5205 times)

IainB

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 7,540
  • @Slartibartfarst
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Join Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales: Protect Internet Freedom And Seek Justice for Richard O'Dwyer
(Go to link for the actual petition and embedded links.)
Hi, I am Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, and if you care about justice and the future of Internet freedom, Demand Progress and I need your help.  This will only take a few seconds, but you can really help us change things for the better.

Richard O'Dwyer is a 24 year old British student at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. He is facing extradition to the USA and up to ten years in prison, for creating a website - TVShack.net – which linked (similarly to a search-engine) to places to watch TV and movies online.

O'Dwyer is not a US citizen, he's lived in the UK all his life, his site was not hosted there, and most of his users were not from the US. America is trying to prosecute a UK citizen for an alleged crime which took place on UK soil.

The Internet as a whole must not tolerate censorship in response to mere allegations of copyright infringement. As citizens we must stand up for our rights online.

Please sign on at right here to join me in demanding that British authorities refuse to extradite O'Dwyer, and that US officials cease persecuting him.

When operating his site, Richard O'Dwyer always did his best to play by the rules: on the few occasions he received requests to remove content from copyright holders, he complied. His site hosted links, not copyrighted content, and these were submitted by users.

Copyright is an important institution, serving a beneficial moral and economic purpose. But that does not mean that copyright can or should be unlimited. It does not mean that we should abandon time-honored moral and legal principles to allow endless encroachments on our civil liberties in the interests of the moguls of Hollywood.

Richard O'Dwyer is the human face of the battle between the content industry and the interests of the general public. Earlier this year, in the fight against SOPA and PIPA, the public won its first big victory. This could be our second.

This is why I am petitioning the UK's Home Secretary Theresa May to stop the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer, and asking the United States to end his prosecution. I hope you will join me.

- Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder
Just add your name at right to sign on and email UK and US authorities.
   If you're already on Facebook, click here to share with your friends.
   If you're already on Twitter, click here to tweet about the campaign:

tomos

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 11,959
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Done.
This is another one of those WTF cases... nice to see it being taken up like this.
Tom

Renegade

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 13,288
  • Tell me something you don't know...
    • View Profile
    • Renegade Minds
    • Donate to Member
+1 for Top Jimmy!



But yeah, definitely on board there! :)
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

tomos

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 11,959
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
It's often hard to keep track of what happens "after":

this is about 9 months late :)
Student Richard O'Dwyer spared US extradition and jail time over TV-Shack copyright charges (zdnet.com)
(November 28, 2012)
Tom

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Good to know - Bummer they didn't just drop the silliness.

wraith808

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 11,186
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Another example of "emergency" powers being abused

"The UK has a rather lopsided extradition arrangement with the US that was put in place in the context of the 'war on terror'. Under the arrangement, the US can demand the extradition of a UK citizen to face charges there without probable cause. The reverse does not apply."

Some TV shows may qualify as "atrocities" but it strikes me as abusing the "arrangement" to use it to demand extradition of this guy. Isn't there any way of repealing it? Or at least balancing it out?

THIS.  I hate that this set precedent. :(

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Another example of "emergency" powers being abused

"The UK has a rather lopsided extradition arrangement with the US that was put in place in the context of the 'war on terror'. Under the arrangement, the US can demand the extradition of a UK citizen to face charges there without probable cause. The reverse does not apply."

Some TV shows may qualify as "atrocities" but it strikes me as abusing the "arrangement" to use it to demand extradition of this guy. Isn't there any way of repealing it? Or at least balancing it out?

THIS.  I hate that this set precedent. :(

+100 - Danger Will Robinson... Danger! Danger!

Renegade

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 13,288
  • Tell me something you don't know...
    • View Profile
    • Renegade Minds
    • Donate to Member
Good to know - Bummer they didn't just drop the silliness.

When somebody hasn't done anything wrong, and you want to punish them, you don't drop it. You simply sick the dogs on them and ruin them in court through lawyer's fees, lost time, etc. Whether or not you win doesn't matter. You've still ruined them.

Convictions are really only a matter of pride for prosecutors. They can exact any vengeance they want by continually bringing people into court. And good news for them - double-jeopardy doesn't matter anymore. That just got thrown out as well. So, if they don't like a verdict, they just try again now. Either way they win. You either go to prison or you're ruined by the costs of trials. The prosecutor has unlimited funds - you simply can't compete with that, and they know it.

Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Good to know - Bummer they didn't just drop the silliness.

When somebody hasn't done anything wrong, and you want to punish them, you don't drop it. You simply sick the dogs on them and ruin them in court through lawyer's fees, lost time, etc. Whether or not you win doesn't matter. You've still ruined them.

Indeed, as I've covered in comments elsewhere on the board. Once you're in-the-system...you are hosed .... Regardless of whether or not you "beat" the charges.