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."

Comments

Duh?

[Wattos]

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.

Re:Duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised by the ruling because it removes the teeth of most copyright law. Now anybody can upload anything safely at airports, cafés, hotel lobbies. Hell, do it from your home WiFi router only make sure you don't use encryption for plausible deniability.

What I'm waiting for is a ruling on an upload from the wired LAN of a largish corporation where they can tie the infringement to the company but not to an individual MAC address. Will employers be forced to do ISP-type logging of all employee network access with 6-month retention?

Re:Duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised by the ruling because it removes the teeth of most copyright law.

I'm surprised too, but I think this ruling is satisfying. After all, just because it's hard/impossible to find the people who actually committed the crime (or perhaps it's just a civil suit), that doesn't mean they should be able to successfully punish/sue the wrong people.

Re:Duh?

[brit74]

> "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."

I was on reddit the other day and the creator of Isohunt mentioned several times that making money from piracy was the holy grail and he had no idea how to do it. (Yeah, Kim Dotcom got money off of piracy, though I'm sure he was earning far less than market value, which makes sense since he didn't have the burden of any costs of production.) So, here's your chance to give suggestions. Preferably ones that don't end up making a *lot* less money than the current system. For example, I recently read a suggestion that companies should put all their movies on something like Hulu for free (but ad supported). The problem is that ads aren't close to paying the bills once you include the cost of making movies and the bandwidth of sending them to you. The only reason ad-supported movies are even available on Hulu is because they're long past their prime, so they're being used to make a few extra bucks. Maybe the solution is to only create movies that cost less than $10 million to make - then, even if piracy grows and takes 90% of your profits, you could still get by. In many ways, I think that's a sad outcome for the movie industry. Even more worryingly, I've noticed a lot of articles talking about new ad-skipping technologies (http://www.dishtvblog.com/dish-news/the-dish-hopper-adds-all-new-feature-auto-hop-that-will-allow-for-a-commercial-skipping-option/) and several people I know have been talking about how they always skip the ads. Which makes me think: gee, people don't want to pay for their entertainment and they're becoming more empowered and pushy about being able to skip the ads, too. I wonder how anyone is supposed to pay for the costs of creating stuff?

So, I just thought I'd put that question there. It's easy to say "hey, you guys should figure out a way to ...", but doing it is harder than saying it. I'm skeptical that there are any business models that can undercut piracy which don't also involve a large cut in revenues.

Re:Duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the model is coming up with new ways to make money off of the entertainment being created. Give it away for free (or sell it at a fraction of the cost where it becomes more work to pirate it) so it becomes wildly popular. Then, sell merchandise related to said media. Have special showings of said media. Have live shows...people can't pirate live shows. Sell advertising inside the media using product placement. I dunno...I am just making shit up but there ARE possibilities here. Why is everyone so lazy to think and come up with new ideas? The internet has changed things. I thought of some ideas in 30 seconds and I am an engineer with no creative ability. I am sure some of those artsy-fartsy types can figure something out if they put their minds to it! The entertainment industry needs to realize this, and adapt. Adapt or die.

Re:Duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The model is to banish our perpetual copyright, and go back to a sane amount of years until works enter the public domain.

I think 25 years is reasonable. At that rate, every movie from 1987 & before would be public domain, and we could have a decent selection on hulu.

Then, I might be willing to pay for a new movie...

business models that can undercut piracy which don't also involve a large cut in revenues.

Lobbying for new laws should not be a 'business model.' Who cares if they have to take a revenue cut? They backed themselves into this corner, fuck 'em, they *should* be taking a revenue cut.

Re:Duh?

[symbolset]

This is really easy. Just sell the darned DRM free video file. The pirates already have it anyway, so they may as well get the money of the people who want to pay.

Re:Duh?

[Fred Ferrigno]

Copyright is a government-enforced monopoly. It's really hard to beat monopoly pricing when it comes to making money, but generally we don't think monopolies are a good idea.

If Domino's had a monopoly on pizza, I'm sure they'd make a lot more money than they do now. And if you came along and said, "Hey, maybe you shouldn't have a monopoly on pizza," they'd be upset at the prospect of losing all that revenue. They'd demand that you provide them with a business model that was just as lucrative. If all you could tell them is that their current revenues were artificially inflated because of their monopoly status, they'd dismiss you as not being serious.

Re:Duh?

[geogob]

I'm surprised by the ruling because it removes the teeth of most copyright law.

Not really. It still has all its power and teeths for those copyright infringement cases for which it was designed in the first place. (hint: internet did not exist at that time, so I doubt it involves wlan access points).

Re:Duh?

[Bob9113]

Preferably ones that don't end up making a *lot* less money than the current system.

Why?

What data did you use to reach the conclusion that our current level of spending on copyrighted works is the right amount?

We have a finite amount of money to spend on things (U.S. GDP, if the "we" we are talking about is the United States). Over the past 100 years, we have continually strengthened copyright. This has the effect of increasing the portion of GDP that is flowing to copyrighted works. Over the past 15 years, we have seen an escalating war between piracy and increased enforcement, and the data on whether this conflict has increased or decreased net proceeds to artists is *extremely* unclear and wildly misrepresented by all sides of the debate.

Seems to me in a data storm like that, it's pretty important to find some solid ground on which to stand. It behooves us to have some way of measuring whether the current approach to funding the production of copyrighted works is consuming too much or too little of our GDP. If we don't know whether we are spending too much or too little, we can't really say whether an alternative solution would do best to result in more or less funding.

Here's one example for spot-checking the situation: Are we more like the decadent side of Rome during the run-up to the decline, awash in circuses of spectacle, or are we more like Sparta in its prime, potent but lacking in culture? If the former, we may be spending too much on copyrighted works. If the latter, it would suggest we are spending too little.

There are other ways to hold a finger up to the wind, and still more to dig into harder data. Do you think we are under-spending or over-spending on the production of copyrighted works, and why?

Re:Duh?

[Raved Thrad]

That's the thing, though: the "rights-owners" act as if the people who want to pay are pirates themselves, or potential pirates. DRM doesn't convince people to pay for a product; rather, it's more likely to convince people that it's not worth the hassle of trying to be good, and end up pirating anyway. DRM is targeted at the people who are paying for the product, rather than the pirates who are going to hack the product anyway and never would have bought it in the first place.

Re:Duh?

[Bob9113]

This has the effect of increasing the portion of GDP that is flowing to copyrighted works.

Footnote: Another way to frame this is that it increases the portion of U.S. resources (land, labor, capital, entrepreneurship) that are being dedicated to the production of copyrighted works instead of producing something else.

Re:Duh?

[QuasiSteve]

I know you're AC and unlikely to return back here, but back in my AC days I did.. so let's give it a shot..

Precursor: I've argued for the removal of copyright, period, before - my view on this is rather black-and-white, if you will.

You say that 25 years is reasonable. But do you then believe that strict enforcement under the full penalty that the law allows is also reasonable for infringement of works that fall within that 25-year period?

You note that you 'might' be willing to pay for a new movie. Can you expand on the 'might'?
Specifically, are you saying that you may or may not even want to see the new movie (and thus payment being implied in the case where you do want to see it) - or are you saying that if you want to see the movie, you might pay for it, but then again you might still 'pirate' it as you have been doing?
In the latter case, how do you believe that your argument for a 25-year period is bolstered by that behavior?

You also only note that you might be willing 'to pay' for a new movie. I would be willing to pay for a Lamborghini, myself, but not the several hundreds of thousands of dollars they currently go for. What do you feel is a reasonable price for a new movie - taking into account, say, day 1 of release?

The remainder of your comment takes a turn. Lobbying for laws has always been 'a business model', but one might well argue that in this case it's not particularly working anyway. One might also well argue that being backed into the corner they're in is not solely their own doing. After all, even if the film industry had caught on early and started putting every movie in their library and new releases as high quality files online without DRM for the cost of $1 each in a well-organized system with an open API so that it could also be offered through e.g. IMDB or any other site... then each movie would still find its way onto sites that will simply bypass that $1 payment and have every bit the breadth of offering, quality, and ease of use.. as those are mere technical limitations that are easily overcome. I have no doubt that it would have cut into 'piracy' substantially - given that there are people who will happily use their Roku to buy an Amazon Prime movie that for all intents and purposes may as well be DRM'd and can only be played back for 24 hours after having started it and must be started within a 48-hour period (iirc). But then again, the Roku box doesn't have an interface to piracy sites. Some others do. Over here it's not entirely uncommon for people to have a big-name media player with official 'newsgroups' support and people will simply hook that up to their favorite binaries server and download the latest movies for free (or something like $8/month if applicable to the binaries server), while people paying to see a movie on demand is far less common.

As to whether they should take a revenue cut... I don't believe they 'should'. That implies direction from above. I believe that if people buy their merchandise less, revenue cuts will follow. Basic business mechanisms will deal with revenue rise/fall - there's no 'should' required or desirable any more than a their desire of a revenue rise that 'should' happen by making it law for everybody to buy at least 1 movie per month. Legislation that says "pirating is disallowed" is vastly different from "you must buy", as the former still leaves the option of neither pirating -nor- buying.

Re:Duh?

[grahamm]

If a hoax or threatening or terrorist telephone call is made from a payphone, either one run directly by the telephone company or one in privately owned premises such as a hotel or motorway services (gas station for those in the USA), the authorities would not confiscate the phone or arrest the owner of the premises. So should an open WiFi connection available to the public not be treated the same way as a payphone?

Re:Duh?

[ultranova]

I do think wifi should be locked down for a variety of reasons - including piracy, viruses, hacking, etc.

In other words, people should not have anonymous Internet access least they commit a crime. Nice.

Re:Duh?

[Raved Thrad]

If it's not targeted at them but they're the only ones getting hit, then the people deploying the DRM have really shitty aim.

Re:Duh?

[Sancho]

If a hoax or threatening or terrorist telephone call is made from a payphone, either one run directly by the telephone company or one in privately owned premises such as a hotel or motorway services (gas station for those in the USA), the authorities would not confiscate the phone or arrest the owner of the premises. So should an open WiFi connection available to the public not be treated the same way as a payphone?

The phone won't have logs--the phone company will, and they will almost certainly share them with law enforcement. The phone cannot contain evidence of the wrongdoing--it won't have a cached copy of the threat. The phone company is also not the prime suspect in the case.

Particularly in a civil trial, the burden of proof is essentially "more likely than not." The standard for evidence gathering is even lower. It's perfectly reasonable to demand an image of a suspect's drive, assuming there is reasonable evidence that the illegal action was taken in the first place.

Re:Duh?

[mcgrew]

Offtopic: Can we please automatically delete all posts with links to my clean pc?

That's one of the things the little black flag is for -- flagging spam so the /. administrators can review and delete it. Just click the flag when you see spam.

Re:Duh?

[mcgrew]

I disagree, you should keep your wifi open if possible, with strong passwords on your wired network and a firewall between your network an modem. I'd leave my wifi open if my ISP's TOS didn't forbid it.

Re:Duh?

[cheekyjohnson]

b) Copyright organizations claim it's necessary to pay (some of ) the costs of piracy

Then no wonder some people claim the former. If you're having to pay these organizations when you didn't even pirate anything to begin with, is that any surprise?

It's illegal in Germany.

[purpledinoz]

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.

Smokescreen

[ChunderDownunder]

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.

Re:Wow!

[SharpFang]

A few weeks ago, I foolishly ran a strange executable file that one of fellow slashdotters posted in a comment. As someone who doesn't know much about computers, at the time, I thought nothing of it. "Why would my fellow slashdotter want to hurt me?" Following this line of thought, I ran the file without question.

It was pretending to be a strange anti-virus software I'd never heard of from a company I'd never heard of.

Internet on the bus

[tepples]

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.

Re:Better be safe than sorry

[leonardluen]

i think this shows the opposite...

Had he locked down his wifi he wouldn't have so easily been able to fight the charges. and would now be facing either fines or jail time whatever the the Fin's penalty is for this.

Re:Authorship is the U.S.'s big export

[Bob9113]

copyrighted works are one of the few things that the United States still successfully exports.

Citation needed. Here's what I found on Wikipedia:

Exports: $1.511 trillion (2011 est.)

Export Goods: agricultural products (soybeans, fruit, corn) 9.2%, industrial supplies (organic chemicals) 26.8%, capital goods (transistors, aircraft, motor vehicle parts, computers, telecommunications equipment) 49.0%, consumer goods (automobiles, medicines) 15.0%

Here's another good source:

1. Civilian aircraft: $74 billion (5.7% of total exports)
2. Semiconductors: $50.6 billion (3.9%)
3. Passenger cars: $49.6 billion (3.9%)
4. Pharmaceutical preparations: $40.4 billion (3.1%)
5. Automotive accessories: $39.9 billion (3.1%)
6. Other industrial machines: $38.1 billion (3%)
7. Fuel oil: $34.9 billion (2.7%)
8. Organic chemicals: $33.4 billion (2.6%)
9. Telecommunications: $32.9 billion (2.6%)
10. Plastic materials: $31.6 billion (2.5%)

So, copyright is not in the top 10, and it's not more than 2.5%.

Re:Better be safe than sorry

[leonardluen]

now i am not advocating that you should break copyright (or that the guy from the article was guilty), but if you are going to break copyright, this case shows you are better off leaving it open as it allows for some plausible deniability that someone else had used the open wifi to do it. had it been locked down it would be quite a bit more difficult to argue that someone else was may have been at fault.

or there is another possibility, had he locked down his access point, and then someone either broke into it, or he gave his password to a friend that then decides to illegally download copyrighted works, then i suspect he would be in a lot more trouble as it would be far more difficult to prove that someone could unknowingly be using your secured wifi access point.

Re:Authorship is the U.S.'s big export

[Bob9113]

Copyrighted works are rarely directly exported from the US. It usually exported from a shell company in a tax haven abroad.

I think I see what you're saying: If copyrighted works are not being taxed like other exports, then we can't make a direct dollar-to-dollar comparison with, for example, industrial equipment exports which pay a larger tax burden. A dollar worth of industrial equipment export contributes more to the public coffers than a dollar of copyright export.

Interesting. Good point to consider. Do you have any numbers?

I'm not sure if I get the exact point you're making relative to this thread. I like the info, but if I'm not seeing a direct point you were trying to make, could you clarify?