A 23-year-old British student who ran a TV link site may be extradited to the United States, a British judge has ruled. The student himself did not host any criminal material, but only linked to downloads.
Student Richard O’Dwyer had appealed against extradition, but to no avail, writes the BBC. In the United States, he faces five years in prison for operating a website with links to downloads of movies and TV series. That would have earned him $230,000 in advertising money.
Although his ‘offense’ is probably not even punishable in the United Kingdom itself, he can still be extradited. According to O’Dwyer’s lawyer, the site, TVShack.net, was basically no different from search engines like Google or Yahoo, which also link to content. However, the US government believes that TVShack.net is specifically set up to search for illegal content.
O’Dwyer’s mother calls the matter “hard to believe” and thinks the United Kingdom’s extradition treaty with the United States is “rotten”. It is unknown when the student will be extradited.