The Crown Prosecution Service looked at the case and decided it wouldn't be in the public interest to proceed with a case. They decided there wasn't enough evidence, indeed the Crown Prosecution Service has been denied access to the evidence that was supposedly used to extradite him.

> The Crown Prosecution Service looked at the case and decided it wouldn't be in the public interest to proceed with a case.

If it's not in the public interest to do it in the UK, why is it in the public interest to do it in the USA? It seems to me that the judge is contradicting the crown here, which seems a bit off, even if you assume it's his right to do so.

The CPS != "the crown" (at least not today). The CPS is the UK equivalent of the DA's office. It's a political bureaucracy (I could literally complain for days about how much of a bureaucracy it is, but you'd get bored of me :)).

The judge, theoretically, is more of the expert on the law and whether it should be tried - but the CPS have to decide to bring the prosecution to him/her. Which is why you regularly get cases that should be seen in court, but which a suit decides is statistically unlikely to prosecute favourably.

Don't English and Welsh law allow for private prosecution of crimes in cases where the CPS declines to prosecute?

Wouldn't that provide an avenue of relief to the copy right holders without removing a UK citizen from the jurisdiction of UK laws?

This whole thing seems troubling to me.

How many US Internet companies collect VAT from sales to folks in the UK? Would that make founders of a US startup subject to extradition to the UK for tax avoidance? What if it's just a tiny DBA "company" with no liability shield?

The whole thing smells rotten to me!

I think it's somewhat unfortunate. IANAL, but I think he can be extradited because the judge thinks an offense has occurred even though the CPS has decided not to prosecute (it's what he seems to be saying here: 'Parliament has made conduct found to be contrary to S.107 (2A) criminal. No court can change the statutory offence').

Unfortunately, there's no clause in the Extradition Act in power at the moment which allows a public interest defense, so it's not the job of the judge to decide such an issue. The forum clause (linked to a bit further down) would change this.

You could make the case there are victims in the US though, no?

I don't support the concept of extradition (period, I think?), but there is a case to be made that the U.S. is aiming to protect its citizens (the media companies in this case) against wrongs.

So before you say/publish anything in the internet you should read the laws of every country in the world? That is just plain nonsense.

Incidentally, this is what I found in the terms of service for a certain popular website. I alerted them to it, and they are looking into rewording it to be less absurd.

I hope for your sake you never say anything derogatory about the Thai monarchy.

I'll concede my claim requires a belief in an absolute morality, which I don't necessarily, but take it my claim in the following form:

1. You believe that copyright infringement is a "wrong" committed by one party on another party (the victim).

2. A British national commits copyright infringement where the victim is in the United States.

3. The United States conceivably has a moral right to seek punishment against that British national.

I mean, to say otherwise would be to say that copyright existed within a border. We have treaties explicitly so that isn't so - if there were a place in the world where copyright law didn't apply, you couldn't post things on the Internet and expect it to retain its copyright.

I don't support extradition in this case. Don't get me wrong. I don't believe in an absolute morality, and I'm not even sure I believe that intellectual property is a good idea on balance, but the moral argument can be made if you're willing to speak in more concrete terms (i.e., if you're willing to accept the premise that copyright infringement is a global "wrong")

Not the same though - if a murderer fled the US, the crime was still committed on US soil, by someone in the US at the time, against (presumably) a US resident/citizen. In other words, it's rightfully American business.

The other country would simply be returning the person to the correct jurisdiction.

Note that even this is not clear-cut at all - many countries will refuse extradition even in this case if there is evidence that the person will face the death sentence or torture.

The USA simply doesn't have the right to prosecute crimes abroad, with no relation to the USA whatsoever - whether in defense of its citizenry or its corporations. That's what the whole concept of sovereignty is about!