It's not my assertion, but that of District Judge Quentin Purdy:

> The judge agreed with John Jones, barrister for the United States government, that “because he was intimately involved in deciding who was allowed to post links on the TVShack websites, which links would be posted”, Mr O’Dwyer’s alleged conduct was a criminal offence under British copyright law.

> In its argument the defence had cited the 2010 case of TV-Links, a website that offered a similar directory of links to pirated material to TVShack. The judge found it was acting as a “mere conduit” and dismissed the criminal charges against the two men who operated TV-Links.

> Judge Purdy however found Mr O’Dwyer had exercised too much control over TVShack to successfully claim the same defence.

— http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9013803/Student-R...