I love how they paint him up as a poor student, and don't mention the $250,000+ he made off the site. This was absolutely not just piracy, but PROFITING from piracy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9013803/Student-R...
“If they can come for Richard they can come for anyone.”
The whole point of the social compact is that the state is supposed to protect it's citizens. That's the quid pro quo that legitimizes statehood. If a country extradites one of it's citizens after finding insufficient reason to prosecute, that's an entirely different quid pro quo.
In the end I just don't get why linking is why if what he did is not it's not illegal where he is he could still be extradited even if he never had servers in the US and never promoted directly to Americans (I'm assuming he didn't go out and ask Americans to his site). Thing is, if his site was in French I would be there would be no case for extradition.
It's a difference of attitude.
I found a snapshot of their site, here are a few bits from their FAQ:
" Also, please keep in mind that you're watching videos for free as opposed to spending over 20 dollars at the movie theater or purchasing a show. This should help you put things in perspective (keep in mind that prices change but this is a normal, typical price). " ... snipped price list ... "So, as you see, you're saving quite a lot of money (especially when putting several visits to the theater or seasons together) by having to wait a little bit of time. "
Their main listing page is broken up into genres, which shows they were aware of the nature of their content, and includes heading that indicate the source of the content: "Movies" "TV" "Anime", etc. They don't even make an effort to hide what they are doing. Their submission page mentions "Copying the name of the show exactly as it is on imdb".
As for the issue of linking, it's a red herring here. This was not some neutral site linking to random, user submitted comment. This was a curated collection. They knew _exactly_ what they were doing.
If someone went around passing out a list of people in your community who leave their back door unlocked, would you have a problem with that? After all, they're only "linking" to potential robbery victims, not actually robbing them.
Edit: From their About page: "TV Shack™ was launched December 2007 by a handful of Swedish university students as a place to watch movies & television online by way of linking to video hosting sites across the web. ... 2009 is set to be a massive sea of change in online video viewing. TV Shack™ has set itself a target of being in the top 1,000 visited websites globally by the end of the year 2009, this will leave it perfectly placed to become an essential stop for the ever growing online video user base."
Under the English interpretation of mens rea, this would seem to fall under the strictest level:
"Direct intention: the actor has a clear foresight of the consequences of his actions, and desires those consequences to occur. It's his aim or purpose to achieve this consequence"
The problem with the internet is that we're fast becoming subject to the laws of every country. I mean, that one guy almost got put to death by Iran...