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Finland: Open WiFi Access Point Owner Not Liable For Infringement
New submitter mjrauhal writes "In Finland, the operator of an open WiFi access point was found not guilty for copyright infringement allegedly committed over said access point. The operation of such access points would have become legally risky were this decided otherwise. Appeal by the Finnish Anti-Piracy Center is still possible for this district court ruling."
A few weeks ago, I foolishly ran a strange executable file that one of my acquaintances sent me by email. As someone who doesn't know much about computers, at the time, I thought nothing of it. "Why would my acquaintance want to hurt me?" Following this line of thought, I ran the file without question.
How naive I was. Despite having what was supposedly the best anti-virus software out right then, a virus took over my computer and held it hostage. It was pretending to be a warning from Windows telling me to buy some strange anti-virus software I'd never heard of from a company I'd never heard of to remove the virus.
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A few days later, they called me and told me to come pick up my computer. At the time, I noticed that they sounded like whimpering animals, but I concluded that it must just be stress from work. When I arrived, they, with tears in their eyes, told me that the virus was so awful and merciless that they were unable to remove it. "Ah," I thought. "That must be why they sounded so frustrated and pathetic over the phone. Their failure must have truly ruined their pride as professionals." I later found out that two of them had committed suicide.
After returning home, I tried to fix it myself (despite the fact that even the professionals couldn't do it). After about a day or so, I was losing my very mind. I stopped going to work, stopped eating, was depressed, and I would very frequently throw my precious belongings across the room and break them; that is how bad this virus was.
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A few months ago, I accepted what at first appeared to be a very simple job: remove a virus from someone's computer. Given the fact that I owned a PC repair shop (and I still do) and had over 15 years of experience, I was confident that I could complete the job in a timely manner without any complications along the way. Little did I know, however, that accepting this job would spiral my life into a nightmarish den of anguish and uncertainty.
First, I tried booting up the PC. When Windows finally loaded, it became apparent that this was no ordinary virus; it was a merciless monstrosity of a virus that would stop at nothing to ruin your entire life. However, despite this, I bravely pressed on and attempted to combat the virus. "I absolutely will not let a mere virus scare me off!" I thought.
After numerous unsuccessful attempts at removing the virus and after exhausting every single option to combat viruses that I had, I finally realized that the situation was absolutely devoid of hope. This was a virus more fearsome than any other, and it was simply impossible for someone with my abilities (skilled as I was) to fight against it alone. Even reinstalling the operating system completely didn't help. I quickly sank into a pit of depression and despair.
Being that I was extremely stressed due to my numerous failures, I began verbally abusing my wife and kids a few days after I received the job. This situation soon worsened when I began resorting to physical abuse in order to relieve some of my anger. Eventually, after not being able to withstand my daughter's constant moans and whines any longer, I locked her in the basement in order to retain an ounce of my sanity.
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About six months ago, I was overexerting myself trying to get rid of a terrible virus on a client's PC (I own a PC repair shop and have been fixing computers for over 10 years). Given my level of expertise, I thought I'd be able to get rid of it fairly quickly and without hassle, but as was made evident by my colossal failure, I was horribly, horribly wrong.
I couldn't remove the virus no matter what method I used. I tried all the latest anti-virus software and all the usual tricks, but it was all in vain. Failure after failure, my life was slowly being sucked away as I spent more and more of my time trying to get rid of this otherworldly virus.
Frustrated and stressed by my own failure, I began distancing myself from my wife and children. After a few days, I began verbally abusing them, and it eventually escalated into physical abuse. I was slowly losing what remaining sanity I had left. If this had continued for much longer, it is highly probable that I would have committed suicide. A mere shell of what I once was, I barricaded myself in my bedroom and cried myself to sleep for days on end.
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I think this goes to show that in most cases, its better to have some encryption than an open network. Sure, you can possibly
fight your way legally, but you're going to need decent lawyers, money, and the press. I just don't think its worth it for most people,
especially with draconian penalties for stuff like child porn tacked on.
Offtopic: Can we please automatically delete all posts with links to my clean pc?
Ontopic:
This baffles me on how money is wasted on anti-piracy. This case should have been dismissed at the very beginning. How can you blame someone simply on the basis of ownership? This is like suing an owner of a car for not locking his car, because his car stolen and used in a crime.
What happens if I use WEP encryption? Would I be liable as well? I wish that the media corporations stopped trolling and started creating some business models which actually make sense in this day and age. All others have already moved forward.
Sharpie in pooper. Shoe on head.
This is absolutely absurd and will be reversed on appeal. You simply cannot create liability black holes where one provides access to the internet and does not adequately track and monitor those who use that access in order to properly determine who is responsible for what criminal act, and expect society to continue to survive. You cannot evaporate liability and expect the rule of law to remain intact; the internet will soon be forced to learn this. In my mind, the solution will likely be per user insurance for internet connections, similar to car insurance.
Does the font used on this article give anyone else a headache?
In Germany, you are legally obligated to secure your wifi. There's a reason why the Pirate Party is receiving many votes in the state elections. If you're in Germany, a lot of YouTube videos (most of them are legit) are blocked because of GEMA (the German RIAA). I've heard that some bands aren't even allowed to post their OWN music on YouTube because GEMA won't allow this. My guess is that the old East German Stasi was just renamed to GEMA.
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The Kafkaesque feature to this incident is, that should you use encryption with your AP, YOU'd probably get sentenced when someone cracks your lame encryption scheme and downloads warez.
The prosecutors and judges probably wouldn't understand that someone can illegally use someone else's private wlan, as it's "secured".
I got at least ten wlans in my neighborhood I could associate with and crack (mostly lamer WEP). And with most APs having factory default admin passwords, much hilarity could ensue.
In Finland it's legal to use all (even private-but-) non-encrypted wlan networks (like your clueless neighbor's). I suppose this is a major headache to all MAFIAA media crooks.
But it apparently protects the AP owner from idiotic and malicious lawsuits.
This fanfare over piracy, thinking of the children, and terrorism is just masking the real issue. Follow the money trail - it leads to mobile phone carriers.
If everyone had open access wifi, there would be reduced need for 3G data plans in major cities. Handsets would use VOIP.
or FAP.
Also dead, its offi3Ers. Others
Ever heard of an arcade? It used to be that video games would come out first on an arcade platform such as Neo Geo or Capcom Play System and then get ported to a console six months later. That was the video game equivalent to films' theatrical window.
You leased that connection from the ISP and what goes across it is your responsibility.
The amount of calories being burned over so-called piracy is absurd, though.
Except that copyrighted works are one of the few things that the United States still successfully exports. If the United States has no goods or services for export, then by the Balassa-Samuelson model, the value of its currency will plummet and it'll have a hard time importing things like energy.
But if there's a Nintendo DS on your WLAN, then your hardware can only do WEP.
If everyone had open access wifi, there would be reduced need for 3G data plans in major cities.
How so? A device with a 3G data plan can connect to the Internet on public transit, unlike a device with only Wi-Fi.
I forgot the name, but a while ago there was talk about a way to let routers wireless routers operate in a way that there would be full, password-protected network and an open, restricted side. The restricted side would not allow access to the internal LAN, be bandwidth restricted, etc.
The idea was to give people an easy way to check e-mail while walking on the street, etc. Don't you hate it when you're out and you're in range of 20 networks and none of them is public?
Maybe, just maybe, from a MBA point of view, the buyers are the pirates....
Once you "buy" something you can:
1. Lend it (like libraries are now doing)
2. Sell it (and the original owner doesn't get a cut).
3. Shift it (backup to newer media to continue its usefulness).
4. Show it (have friends over and put it on).
5. Trade it (With friends, others who haven't seen it)
6. Watch it instead of watching something just released (and requiring payment).
All the above takes "profits" from a business (from their perspective); look at the attack going on against Used-Game sales right now, I expect we are only a few years (5-10) away from the same thing happening to movies. Where the ability to "buy" movies will go away (I think the start of this was with the XBox and PS3 wanting to be the "home media center") and you'll have to pay a fee or monthly charge for viewing movies at all.
Talk to any business person, venture capitalist, etc. and what they want NOW in a business is recurring charges (monthly, per-use, etc) forever. They do not want to invest in companies that don't have a plan for continued recurring charges; therefore, businesses are having to find a way to "ding" their users on every "use" or get some sort of "monthly" plan.
MS has been talking about this for years (and sounds like Win8 may be the portal into it), Apple is bucking the trend but it's starting to creep in for them too (iCloud), Google has always had it (and that's why they are a business darling). Even cars, with Service, On-Star, Roadside Assistance, have ways to get that monthly/yearly recurring billing and I expect as more computers/tech go into cars there will be even more ways to get that nickel/month.
Businesses love the idea of "low" recurring fees, it means a person can spend FAR more than they would have normally for the same thing; and, it can make a person "seem" to have a lot more money then than have. e.g., If a person makes $4000 a month, and saves to buy everything in cash, then they must take time and effort (and thus must analyze) before making that purchase (e.g., $800 Phone); however, if you can give it to them now for $50 a month for 24 months then the person can say they still have $3950 a month left. We have been tricked into thinking we should use the House Mortgage concepts for small purchases and this is REALLY BAD! The double whammy is that the $800 phone, if it could not be sold amortized would probably only sell for $300-400. Therefore, EVERYONE (even those who want to pay cash) get screwed. We end up paying 2-3 times the price for an item (because the Market can bare it) and we then pay the "servicing" fees which can double that cost yet again.... Ridiculous is an understatement and this is unfortunately the market that EVERY business now wants (or has to become to get financing). It is this model that makes FaceBook worth so much :(
For me, I've given up, I put a value on everything (e..g, Movies worth $5 max, CDs less) and wait until I find those items in bargain bins before I buy them. I do not pirate (at all), not because I can't or won't (I used to pirate a lot back when I spent $200-$400 a month on media), but because I have just given up! Too much BS has made me contrary, to the point where I have realized I am better off without ANY of it.
Now, I figure they'll have to work real hard to ever win me back; that $200-$400 I used to spend is just going into a bank account; to think, there was a time when I considered $20-$25 for a move a good price and worth it (I had over a thousand VHS movies at that time -- all new! and about 300 that were copied onto blank tapes), Then, I got rid of those VHS movies, and now have 600 DVD's (all new) but only a dozen of so cost more than $5, and not a single copied one (unless backed up do to the DVD cracking). So 1000 * $20 ~= $20,000 spent with no qualms. Now, 600*$5 ~= $3000 spent. (This is over about the same period of time too, I am actually buying less, even though I am trying to replace all
You could have a centralized system (like Steam) for tracking user activities.
How would such a system track user activities on a Free operating system, where the user can modify the OS kernel to limit the "centralized system (like Steam) for tracking user activities" to a sandbox that can't see much? And even without a sandbox, how would it track music and movies that don't match any well-known hashes because they have been copied through the analog hole or otherwise reencoded?
As for unknown files, all you need is a pop up box where you ask the user what original files does it match.
For one thing, the user has no incentive to answer correctly. Either there is a way to answer that the file is a file that the user created (in which case the user will lie), or there is no way for the user to create an original work or otherwise add a file that isn't a major-label published work (in which case it's as locked down as a game console). Or I'm missing something fundamental.
If everyone had open access wifi, there would be reduced need for 3G data plans in major cities.
A device with a 3G data plan can connect to the Internet on public transit, unlike a device with only Wi-Fi.
Last time I tried, 3G did not connect to the public Internet
Neither does Wi-Fi, which is behind NAT in every single deployment that I remember having used.