Battleangel

Via Slashdot …

After a swift defeat last March, the American government has won an appeal in an Australian court to have Hew Raymond Griffiths extradited to America to face trial – on charges of copyright infringement. Griffiths is accused of being the ringleader of a “warez” group known as DOD (Drink or Die), using the alias Bandido. So-called warez groups reverse engineer software, freeing it of any copy protection, and spread it across the Internet free of charge.

Don’t be swayed by the US DOJ’s propaganda about warez – its claim, for example, that it costs millions (per group) and billions (in sum total) to the software industry each year. These are the same erroneous, inflated figures pumped out by the BSA annually.

What’s really at stake here is the legal sovereignty of Australia. Admittedly, they gave some of that up by accepting a recent trade pact with the US, and importing the DMCA into .au law as a result. But the implications of the Griffiths’ case are much more serious. “Bandido” never profited from his crimes – he was and still is, in fact, unemployed and living with his parents. He showed public disdain to those who would profit from the work of others. Nor does the American government contend this.

They also don’t contend a more obvious fact – Griffiths has never set foot in America in his life. Still, despite Australian law being more than equipped to deal with such a case, the DOJ under Ashcroft has decided to impose U.S. law on the world at large.

Source: Shocking News

Those are some very valid questions. As the ever watchful Slashdot readers also underline, it is bizarre that US extradition only goes one way. We, the rest of the world need to be ever so wary about US laws because apparently they apply to everyone on the planet. US citizens of course don’t have to worry about the laws of Australia or Sweden though. And the prospect that the US would allow one of its citizens to be extradited, especially over such a menial offence, is highly improbable.

When will we put an end to this?