British 'piracy' student loses US extradition fight

A 23-year-old Sheffield student can be extradited to the US to face copyright infringement allegations, a judge has ruled this afternoon.

Richard O'Dwyer set up the TVShack website, which authorities in the US claim is host to links to pirated films and television shows.

The student has recently been fighting the threat of extradition, but today lost his case at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

Charges against O'Dwyer, which were brought following an investigation by the US authorities, could result in him facing up to five years in jail.

His lawyer Ben Cooper indicated during the hearing that the Sheffield Hallam student would appeal against the ruling.

Cooper had argued that TVShack did not actually host copyrighted material, but instead directed users where to access it, just as Google does in its search engine.

He also expressed concern that O'Dwyer would be used as a "guinea pig" for the strengthened US law on copyright infringement.

However, district judge Quentin Purdy decided to allow the extradition to go ahead.

Earlier, Julia O'Dwyer, Richard's mother, had described the actions of US authorities as "beyond belief".

She told BBC News that Britain's extradition treaty with the United States was "rotten".

O'Dwyer was visited at his South Yorkshire home in November 2010 by police officers from the UK and America, who seized equipment and documents.

UK police did not level any charges against him, but a case was brought by the US Customs and Border Protection agency.

The situation comes at a time of increasingly hardline responses to online copyright infringement in America and Europe.

Last year, the Hollywood movie studios successfully secured a court order forcing BT to block access to Newzbin2, a members-only website that allegedly hosts links to copyrighted material. Sky has also since blocked access to the site.

In America, the new SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) legislation has widely been criticised by a number of technology firms and activist groups.

SOPA aims to 'throttle' foreign online copyright pirates by stopping web advertising networks and payment processors from doing business with them.

However, the founders of Google, Twitter, eBay and Wikipedia were among a large group of signatories to an opposition letter submitted to Congress, criticising SOPA as a new form of censorship.