A London court ruled on Friday a British student can be extradited to the United States for breaching US copyright law by running a website that allowed users to access films and TV programmes illegally. Richard O'Dwyer's website, TV Shack, provided links to other websites where users could access content but did not host any of the content itself.
The 23-year-old, who says he started the project to improve his computer programming skills and help him get a work placement, did not charge users but sold $230,000 worth of advertising on the site, according to US authorities. "I was forced to set up advertising because of the massive server fees," O'Dwyer told BBC radio ahead of the ruling.
"When you've got a website with over 300,000 people a month visiting, there's a need for infrastructure to support that. There's no other way to do it, unless you had the money yourself." The United States has cracked down far harder than Britain on illegal file-sharing, which has damaged the film, television and music industries. O'Dwyer's lawyer Ben Cooper argued that by linking to other websites, his client had done nothing more than the likes of Google Inc or Yahoo Inc.
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