Post #1 · Posted at 2012-07-12 12:59:30pm 12.9 years ago
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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
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
From DemandProgress email
Does this mean it will eventually goes to a global scale?
Post #2 · Posted at 2012-07-12 01:21:05pm 12.9 years ago
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I've always thought that SOPA/PIPA/ACTA's dead; now this comes up?!
Post #3 · Posted at 2012-07-12 01:34:44pm 12.9 years ago
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you thought wrong nicolas. over here in NZ our police enacted illegal warrants at the beck and call of the US to arrest Kim dotcom.
If you screamed 'illuminati' you wouldn't be far off the mark. Money is no object, governments and laws are brief inconvenience at best.
Hell, our government changed the law regarding the limits on pokie machines for a free convention centre worth a few hundred million, everyone's up in their shit about that one too.
Plus just look at japan and various legislations popping up elsewhere IE our section 92a (new zealand) and our anti torrent bill (bought and paid for by the US once again)
If you screamed 'illuminati' you wouldn't be far off the mark. Money is no object, governments and laws are brief inconvenience at best.
Hell, our government changed the law regarding the limits on pokie machines for a free convention centre worth a few hundred million, everyone's up in their shit about that one too.
Plus just look at japan and various legislations popping up elsewhere IE our section 92a (new zealand) and our anti torrent bill (bought and paid for by the US once again)
Post #4 · Posted at 2012-07-12 02:18:32pm 12.9 years ago
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Unlike the first SOPA-PIPA War (I called it that way lol), there are no notifications on Wikipedia. I mean, if that e-mail is really from Jimmy Wales, why didn't he notify the Wikipedians?
Post #5 · Posted at 2012-07-12 02:36:54pm 12.9 years ago
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@TheSirius17
Actually that was an email from DemandProgress, I just copied the content from the email and paste it here.
It is also on the website:
http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/odwyer/
Actually that was an email from DemandProgress, I just copied the content from the email and paste it here.
It is also on the website:
http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/odwyer/
Post #6 · Posted at 2012-07-12 02:38:41pm 12.9 years ago
In a way, it seems as if America is starting to become so overpowered to the point where, it feels as if it can enforce laws/rules on everyone/everything in the world, and make pathetic excuses to exempt itself from following those rules/laws. Completely blatant in my honest opinion.
Post #7 · Posted at 2012-07-12 09:02:46pm 12.9 years ago
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So, he really didn't break any UK laws, he wasn't in the US and the website wasn't in the US...yet they'll just allow the guy to be extradited to the US...why? Because someone from the US said so? That's so messed up on SO many levels, it just blew my mind

Post #8 · Posted at 2012-07-12 09:30:33pm 12.9 years ago
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The US has buddies (Can't think of the offical word for it) that if they have someone they want to prosecute, they can pretty much go "Hey UK, we want this guy". This expains how the Megaupload guy got prosecuted in Hong Kong. I find this case however interesting because it was proven that the Megaupload thing was out of the US control and should not have done it and/or had the right to do it in the first place. This is the same deal.

Quote: NuVirus
In a way, it seems as if America is starting to become so overpowered to the point where, it feels as if it can enforce laws/rules on everyone/everything in the world, and make pathetic excuses to exempt itself from following those rules/laws. Completely blatant in my honest opinion.
It's not the UK, it's the internet and the site can be opened in the US, therefore it's on US soil. Pretty much there's the dumb idea of the Internet being US property. 
Post #9 · Posted at 2012-07-12 11:10:22pm 12.9 years ago
I don't think that the privacy wars are ever going to stop until the government has their way and passes their stupid bills.
If one bill fails, someone will think of another. It's an endless cycle.
APPEND: No, the privacy wars will continue until all privacy is dead. Even if the Govt. passes a stupid bill, we could always opt out of the internet and still enjoy (limited) privacy outside in the real world. But even that's going to become an issue once scientists and engineers perfect flying nanobots.

APPEND: No, the privacy wars will continue until all privacy is dead. Even if the Govt. passes a stupid bill, we could always opt out of the internet and still enjoy (limited) privacy outside in the real world. But even that's going to become an issue once scientists and engineers perfect flying nanobots.

Post #10 · Posted at 2012-07-13 12:30:09am 12.9 years ago
They still can't see we still got Google, Bing, Yahoo, Youtube, Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook and a whole crap ton of others fighting for our Privacy rights. Thats pretty much 80% of the internet they are gonna piss off which is like over a billion people. When will they give up? They know they are gonna lose. AGAIN.
Post #11 · Posted at 2012-07-13 01:23:43am 12.9 years ago
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Quote: kentontranced
So, he really didn't break any UK laws, he wasn't in the US and the website wasn't in the US...yet they'll just allow the guy to be extradited to the US...why? Because someone from the US said so? That's so messed up on SO many levels, it just blew my mind
You're all thinking about this in that way, but remember. Replace the UK with Sweden, and you have EXACTLY what happened with The Pirate Bay. It's not a new thing.
Post #12 · Posted at 2012-07-13 03:14:06am 12.9 years ago
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Quote: Oni-91
Quote: kentontranced
So, he really didn't break any UK laws, he wasn't in the US and the website wasn't in the US...yet they'll just allow the guy to be extradited to the US...why? Because someone from the US said so? That's so messed up on SO many levels, it just blew my mind
You're all thinking about this in that way, but remember. Replace the UK with Sweden, and you have EXACTLY what happened with The Pirate Bay. It's not a new thing.
Except that the creators behind The Pirate Bay were tried in Swedish courts, not in American courts (if I'm not mistaken). Also, this didn't stop The Pirate Bay completely, with the ability to move servers for example.