Last week, we wrote about how student Richard O'Dwyer cut a deal with the feds to end the extradition attempt and criminal charges against him for running TVShack.net, a links site similar to other UK sites that had already been deemed legal. We noted that as a part of this "deferred prosecution," O'Dwyer would need to come to the US and pay a "small sum." He's now done so, and the court has ordered that he pay £20,000. That's still a decent chunk of change, but not a crippling amount like what we've seen in cases like the Jammie Thomas or Joel Tenenbaum cases (which were very different types of cases, but arguably over much lesser charges -- civil vs. criminal for one thing...). It still seems ridiculous that he needed to pay anything at all, but getting the case over, for an amount that he can "afford," while avoiding jail seems like a pretty big victory for him -- especially given the language that the feds (and Hollywood) have used to describe O'Dwyer. In the meantime, guess how much of the £20,000 will be going to the artists O'Dwyer supposedly was harming?

It appears that the ridiculous saga of the US's baseless criminal case against Richard O'Dwyer is now ending, as O'Dwyer has effectively cut a deal to pay a small sum in exchange for avoiding extradition and trial in the US. If you don't recall, O'Dwyer, a computer science student, ran TVshack.net, one of the sites that ICE and the DOJ seized during one of their many questionable censorship days, in which they seize domain names, in direct conflict with what the law requires. Then they went the extra step of seeking to extradite O'Dwyer to face criminal charges in the US. In this case, it was doubly bizarre, because O'Dwyer, a UK citizen, was running a site that was nearly identical to some other sites that had been found to be perfectly legal in the UK -- and one of the pre-requisites for a criminal copyright charge is that the person needs to be willfully violating the law. Given that other comparable sites were found to be legal, it's difficult to see how US officials could meet that bar. There was also the fact that the US was, as it had attempted in the Rojadirecta case, trying to create a completely made up theory of criminal copyright liability for secondary infringement. In fact, as we noted in other cases, US courts have found that what TVshack was doing was not infringement.

The O'Dwyer case continued to get plenty of attention, with widespread protests in the UK, especially after UK officials approved his extradition to the US. Now, however, the case will be wrapped up under what's known as "deferred prosecution" in which O'Dwyer will pay a "small sum" and the case will be concluded. You can see why O'Dwyer would do this deal after a year and a half of fighting the extradition. It's also not too surprising that the DOJ would agree to such a deal, given how it ran from other similar cases once it realized that there was competent legal help absolutely decimating its ridiculous legal theories. The DOJ had to realize that it was likely to lose badly even if O'Dwyer was extradited -- so now they get to save face and pretend that O'Dwyer paying a small sum is a form of "victory."

It's good that the case is over and that O'Dwyer can get on with his life, though it's ridiculous that any part of this case ever happened.

A poll conducted in the UK has found that only 9% of those surveyed agreed that student Richard O'Dwyer should be extradited to face criminal charges in the US for creating TVShack, a site that let people link to videos hosted elsewhere. So far, the government has been ignoring public cries not to allow the extradition, but this poll really seems to suggest that the public is not too keen on shipping O'Dwyer overseas.

Only 9% of the British public believe he should face trial in the US for his actions, according to the YouGov research. The largest group, 46%, said O'Dwyer should not be prosecuted at all, while 26% felt he should be tried in the UK.

At some point, something has to give. The UK Home Office can't keep pretending that this is a minor issue that it can brush under the rug to keep the American government (and Hollywood) happy.

In January, a judge said that the UK could extradite student Richard O'Dwyer to the US to face criminal copyright infringement charges for the "crime" of linking to streaming videos hosted elsewhere -- something that had already been found legal in the UK multiple times. This is pretty important, because for it to be criminal infringement, it has to be willful, and if sites that were nearly identical to O'Dwyer's TVShack.net were found legal in his home country, where he lived and where he operated the site, it's difficult to see how there's anything willful at all.

Furthermore, since he's only linking there isn't direct infringement, only the possibility of secondary infringement. Now, there are aiding and abetting laws, but it would have to be aiding and abetting of criminal copyright infringement and that would require the users of TVShack to be guilty of criminal infringement -- meaning that they were profiting from willful infringement. And that doesn't seem likely either. There are so many holes in the case it's difficult to understand why ICE and DHS are ruining the life of a UK student with no clear legal basis.

Either way, as the UK government continues to kowtow to the US entertainment industry, the Secretary of State has taken the court's initial okay and approved the extradition. This is really damning for the UK government. Given the growing concerns about the overreach of the entertainment industry to take away basic freedoms, sending Richard O'Dwyer across the Atlantic on bogus charges just so the MPAA can stick his head on a pike somewhere isn't going to go over very well.

Want to understand just how insane things may get under SOPA/PIPA? Just take a look at what's already happening under today's laws. Back in 2010, one of the first websites that Homeland Security's ICE (Immigrations & Customs Enforcement) group seized was TVShack.net. TVShack was a site that collected links to TV shows. Certainly, many of those shows were likely to be infringing -- but TVShack did not host the content at all, it merely linked to it. Richard O'Dwyer, the guy who ran the site, was a student building an interesting project over in the UK. However, the US Department of Justice decided that he was not only a hardened criminal, but one who needed to be tried on US soil. Thus, it began extradition procedures. Even worse, nearly identical sites in the UK had already been found legal multiple times -- with the court noting that having links to some infringing content was certainly not criminal copyright infringement. That makes things even more ridiculous, because extradition is only supposed to be allowed for activities that are criminal in both the US and the UK.

But, seriously, think about how insane this is. With all the problems in the world, the US was spending time trying to extradite a UK student to the US, because he set up a site that had links to some infringing material. Is this really the best use of US law enforcement's time?

O'Dwyer has been fighting the extradition attempt... but today, unfortunately, a UK judge ruled against him.

District Judge Purdy said in his ruling: "There are said to be direct consequences of criminal activity by Richard O'Dwyer in the USA albeit by him never leaving the north of England.

"Such a state of affairs does not demand a trial here if the competent UK authorities decline to act and does, in my judgment, permit one in the USA."

He added: "I reject all challenges advanced to this request. No bars or other challenge being raised or found, I send the case to the Secretary of State."

O'Dwyer can and almost certainly will appeal this decision. But this is just ridiculous. And this is under existing laws. Just think what happens under SOPA/PIPA -- which are even more targeted at foreign sites. Do we really want the US government going around the world, dragging kids from their homes and taking them back to the US to throw them in jail... because they set up a web page with some links on it?