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UK Pub Reportedly Fined For Illegal Wi-Fi Download
superglaze and several other readers noted a piece up on ZDNet.co.uk reporting that last summer a pub in the UK was fined £8,000 after a customer downloaded copyrighted material on its Wi-Fi connection. According to the article, whose source was the Wi-Fi hotspot provider, it was a civil action and the pub was not identified because its owner had not given permission to release the details. Techdirt is skeptical as to whether or not the reported fine happened, given the sketchiness surrounding the details. If true, the ruling seems baffling to UK legal experts, according to ZDNet: "Internet law professor Lilian Edwards, of Sheffield Law School, told ZDNet that companies that operate a public Wi-Fi hotspot should 'not be responsible in theory' for users' illegal downloads under 'existing substantive copyright law.'" In a follow-up article, Prof. Edwards cautions that such hotspot operators should "watch out for the pile of copyright infringement warnings coming your way."
No, no, and more no.
This sort of litigation is unwise at best. If providing network access makes one responsible for the users' actions, that will severely impact availability of service. Hotels, coffee shops, airports and the like all become liable for their users. Bad move. What if I power my laptop using electricity at the pub but use an AirCard to use a cell phone network to infringe copyright? Ultimately this is foolishness, regardless of how copyright infringement is viewed.
It's time to reinforce the concept that I am responsible for my actions, and nobody else. Aiding and abetting is something entirely different from what a WiFi provider does. Just because copyright owners can't actually track down the person infringing doesn't make it okay to pick the next guy up as the source of the proverbial pound of flesh.
"Oh no... he found the
This is scarily along the lines of the iiNet (popular Australian ISP) versus AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) case that just finished in the courts a few days ago. We're all waiting for the Judge's ruling next year as it could set a huge precedent.
See http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=afact+vs+iinet
Nice, some rumor propagation on the front page.
Supposedly, according to a wifi hotspot provider, one of their unnamed clients was fined because an unnamed patron downloaded some unnamed copyrighted material.
I'm surprised the amount wasn't also undisclosed.
Now, I'm all for the birth of new urban legends for the hi-tech crowd... and maybe I'm a bit cynical, but this sure seems like some nice marketing for that wifi company, whose name I will omit in case marketing is what this is about.
See, they get their name plastered on the intertubes, while their claim will get thoroughly debunked, and all people will remember is the name of the company and the fact that public wifi operators are protected by safe harbor laws.
If the pub DID really get fined GBP 8k for copyright violations, it's probably more likely that it was because they were streaming sports content live to their patrons. This is how I watch Rutgers football games that are not on TV... I go to a bar where they stream the games (albeit at very low res with some hiccuping) onto a big-screen TV.
But, I'm guessing here, based on the words of that wifi company. Which is the same thing everyone is doing, so why can't we just ignore this stupid story until there is some actual fact-checking done?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
A couple of jobs ago I had several clients who were cafe's providing free Wifi.
Their setups just consisted of home Wifi routers, they had no ability to account for the traffic that passed through their networks and had no way to control access.
Today you can get box solutions for under $1000 dollars to provide basic Identity Management, monitoring, logging and firewall/proxy control to give you more control but many of those solutions are still not enough to prevent file sharing, or provide extended logging with 12 months or more records in case you have to prove a legal issue.
Much of the train of thought with many of these hotspot operators is to offer wifi because the cafe/restaurant down the street does it and they have no thought of their legal obligations as a service provider and really are not aware of the risk that goes with it.
The BSA/RIAA/MPAA could have a field day attempting to sue the pants off these kind of operators if they really wanted to focus their attention on it.
One can only hope that we get more and more outrageous cases, because it's clear the lawmakers and the courts are incapable of reigning in the stupidity. I hope they start fining little old grannies millions, and every WiFi hotspot in the industrialized world shuts down out of fear of litigation. I hope that the Internet is rendered practically useless by filters and deep packet inspections and the effective banning of encrypted data. I hope the whole thing slows down so badly that the lawmakers are either forced to backtrack or it finally becomes a big enough electoral issue that all the filthy whores that occupy the halls of power are swept away.
The reason I hope this is because it seems clear that lawmakers, either being complete fucking retards or sucking at the teats of Big Media are incapable or unwilling to start putting the brakes on this. Sometimes it takes enough worst case scenarios to wake the public up to the reality that the whores they elect have ceased representing them, and the force of public will starts making progress. I mean, that's what it finally took to send the message that the Iraq War was an absurd waste of money and resources.
The one thing it proves is that people, lawmakers and voters, are utterly incapable of seeing the consequences of actions before the actions are taken.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If one of their customers had ordered a CD with a fraudulent credit card (over their payphone), would the fine have been more, or less?
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC