Re: German court orders wireless passwords for all

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Rigo Wenning <rigo () w3 org>
> Date: May 18, 2010 2:41:46 PM EDT
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Re:  German court orders wireless passwords for all

> Hi Dave,
>
> the court decision was not by the Federal constitutional court but  
> by the
> hightest civil court (Bundesgerichtshof). Everybody waits for the  
> written
> opinion to see what their decision really means.
>
> In fact, a person was on holidays when somebody used his unsecured  
> wifi
> network to make a music download. There was no massive download  
> involved. Most
> reports emphasized that the court required people to change the  
> default
> password to something more secure to be out of liability.
>
> Let's see what comes out, but already today, we can see that free  
> wifi will be
> very difficult to organize in Germany in the future.
>
> Best,
>
> Rigo
>
> On Saturday 15 May 2010 03:06:59 David Farber wrote:
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > From: Konrad Neuwirth <konrad () fimsch net>
> > Date: May 13, 2010 5:19:47 PM EDT
> > To: dave () farber net
> > Subject: Re: [IP] German court orders wireless passwords for all
> >
> > Hello there,
> >
> > although there was a ruling and it was quite important, I feel that  
> > a few
> > corrections are in order.
> >
> > Am 12.05.2010 um 18:37 schrieb Dave Farber:
> > > > BERLIN – Germany's top criminal court ruled Wednesday that Int 
> > > > ernet
> > > > users need to secure their private wireless connections by  
> > > > password to
> > > > prevent unauthorized people from using their Web access to  
> > > > illegally
> > > > download data.
> >
> > The court that spoke was actually the Bundesverfassungsgerichtshof  
> > -- the
> > Federal Constitutional Court. You can find it's web presence at
> > <http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/en/index.html>.  it as much a
> > criminal court as the supreme court in the US is.
> >
> > > > Internet users can be fined up to euro100 ($126) if a third party  
> > > > takes
> > > > advantage of their unprotected WLAN connection to illegally  
> > > > download
> > > > music or other files, the Karlsruhe-based court said in its  
> > > > verdict.
> >
> > What the verdict says is actually a little more specific, and it's  
> > actually
> > in part good news.  Before the verdict, lawyers chasing down the  
> > illegal
> > sharing of copyrighted materials could (and did) make up horrendous  
> > sums
> > of 'damages' that the use of file sharing technologies caused,  
> > sending out
> > large bills to the owners of the specific IP numbers at the time of
> > sharing.  This is now no longer possible, for there is now the 100  
> > EUR
> > limit on such cases. It's also not a 'fine' in the sense that it's  
> > a money
> > transaction involving the government -- it's actually just between  
> > the
> > rightholders lawyers and the internet user.
> >
> > It also says that the owner of unsecured WLANs can be held  
> > responsible for
> > any and all copyright violations coming from their network, even if  
> > they
> > were on holiday at that time -- the lack of proper WLAN protection  
> > is the
> > point what makes them responsible.
> >
> > It'll be interesting to see how WLAN access point vendors react now.
> >
> > //Konrad
> >
> >
> >
> >
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