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Germany Set To End Copyright Liability For Open Wi-Fi Operators
An anonymous reader writes: People who travel to Germany are often surprised at the lack of public, open Wi-Fi networks. That's because German law holds operators of public hotspots liable for everything their users do online, especially when these actions are against the law, and even if the operators weren't aware of them. The law doesn't apply to commercial operators, but does to private (think home WI-Fi's) and small operators (e.g. wireless networks set up by public establishments like coffee bars, shops, etc.). But, there's more than a good chance that this clause of the law will be repelled this year, and hopefully, open Wi-Fi networks in Germany will mushroom as a result.Copyright trolls, who make money by sending invoices to people claiming that their content has been infringed, will not be pleased.
...a guest SSID on every AP coming to everything near you!
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Actually, the whole submission is in German, so any correct English is purely accidental, anyway.
Pirate more music that has no reason being disseminated in the first place? IMHO any music worth listening too is already free.
They have pulled off this trick once already: they had said they end the liability, while in fact just making the regulations more strict and requiring stupid things like a captive portal where you have to agree to not commit crimes (WTF?!) and mandating encryption of the WiFi.
They had made a press release about "ending" liability for operators, and the whole press copy-pasted it without questioning. Then after a day or so the press started hearing about the smart people who have outlined this to them, and corrected their mistake.
They have played this game once already, and back then they even published a regulation draft. Now we only have the press release, without a draft. Show me the draft or GTFO. I won't believe them until I saw it.
In my case I was accused of file-sharing some porn film. It was a false positive but that does not make any difference under current German law, if their program says you were file-sharing then that is assumed to be the case.
Considering what some German porn seems to be, I'd be denying it as well.
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