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The law may be on your side, but you almost certainly WILL get sued.

Go to: www.rfcexpress.com

Uncheck everything except copyright, and search for "Doe" as in John Doe. You will find hundreds to thousands of people listed in lawsuits filed every week. There have been more than 300,000 people sued in the past couple years for copyright violations. Sure, you will likely win in a court battle. But it will probably cost you at least $10,000.

I actually don't want to pay >$10k to provide my neighbors with wifi.

Now THAT is how copyright law is supposed to work! So refreshing to see it actually properly applied.

Not really. If you go back to the original decision, you find that Tanya Steele never appeared in court, never communicated with the court, and the plaintiff totally swears that he mailed her two letters demanding that she appear in Australia, to which she never responded. This was a default judgement, and those almost always get reversed if the defendant later appeals. Bell may still win eventually, but this judgement is just a rubber stamp and has no actual precedential value.

Additionally, there are jurisdiction and venue problems. The events took place in New York. The defendant lives in New York. Any witnesses are in New York, and the real subject of the dispute - whether this was a contractual work for hire or what - is under New York state law. So why was this case filed on literally the other side of the world? The court may have jurisdiction over the plaintiff, but it has none over the defendant. She has no need to appear, and this judgement is unenforceable.

And finally, she's filed a suit in federal court in New York. If Bell fails to show up for that one, she'll get the exact same summary judgement, but with one difference - Vimeo, Inc., who hosted the video, is based in New York, too, and she could get an enforceable court order to keep them from reposting it.

One of the comments to the Techdirt FA links to a lawsuit Steele filed against Bell in US Federal Court last December. Unfortunately, it costs money to get much in the way of details, but apparently it hasn't been resolved yet.

http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuits/copyright-lawsuits/massachusetts-district-court/82641/astrolabe-inc-v-arthur-david-olson/summary/

If you want the court documents related to this, they're also available on that site. For 99 cents or more.

http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuits/copyright-lawsuits/massachusetts-district-court/82641/astrolabe-inc-v-arthur-david-olson/summary/

Not a lot of detail here:
http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuits/copyright-lawsuits/massachusetts-district-court/82641/astrolabe-inc-v-arthur-david-olson/summary/
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/massachusetts/madce/1:2011cv11725/139342/

but appears to be a copyright infringement suit.