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Politics Obama reponds to concerns over TVShack creator's US extradition

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Obama reponds to concerns over TVShack creator's US extradition
By Mark Brown, 31 January 12

In a crowdsourced interview session with Barack Obama, Google users voted that a question about TVShack creator Richard O'Dwyer should be the number one issue to be put to the US president. Amongst some 133,000 questions, a query from Connecticut's Michael Mozart rose to the top of the pack with over 6,200 votes. Mozart asked, "Why are you personally supporting the extradition of UK Citizen Richard O'Dwyer for solely linking to copyright infringing works?" He also asked why US authorities were "using an Extradition Treaty designed to combat terrorism and to bring terrorists to judgement in the USA?"

O'Dwyer is the 23-year-old British student responsible for sharing site TVShack. His site didn't host any pirated content itself, but the US Customs and Border Protection agency have called for him to be extradited to the US and tried for copyright infringement. Earlier this month, a judge at Westminster Magistrates' Court ruled that the US authorities should be able to extradite O'Dwyer. "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.," the judge said. When questioned, Obama made clear to distance himself from allegations that he was calling for O'Dwyer's extradition. "I'm not personally doing anything!" he joked. "One of the ways our system works is that the president doesn't' get involved with prosecution decisions or extradition decisions and this has been a decision by the justice department," he clarified. In a tweet, O'Dwyer's mother said, "typical politician response, don't know whats going on in his name but good to get the question in appreciated." Later she said, "would be nice if [the Prime Minister] would comment now". A review of the Extradition Act was part of David Cameron and Nick Clegg's coalition manifesto. Back to Obama, the US president went on to explain, "what I can say broadly is that we want to make sure that intellectual property is protected, we want to make sure that the creative works of people in this country aren't expropriated. But we want to do it in a way that's consistent with internet freedom."

That was his stance on the controversial Sopa legislation. His administration issued a public response to the bill in January, saying "we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet." In the Google+ interview he said, "when Sopa came up on [Capitol] Hill we expressed some concerns about the way the legislation had been written. We told folks: lets go back to the table and try to figure something out that works for everybody". His solution to stifle piracy but keep the internet free? "We're just gonna keep on working on it."

Summary
In a crowdsourced interview session with Barack Obama, Google users voted that a question about TVShack creator Richard O'Dwyer should be the number one issue to be put to the US president.

Description
Barack Obama, the US president went on to explain, "what I can say broadly is that we want to make sure that intellectual property is protected, we want to make sure that the creative works of people in this country aren't expropriated. But we want to do it in a way that's consistent with internet freedom."

Tags: Crowdsourced, Crowdsourcing, David O'Dwyer, Google, PIPA, SOPA, White House, YouTube

Posted by Fritz Schaefer

Jan 31, 2012 11:41 pm GMT Viewed 698 times

Author: Mark Brown Source

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