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Re: German court orders wireless passwords for all
From: Dave Farber <dfarber () me com>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 11:18:06 -0400
Begin forwarded message:
From: Rigo Wenning <rigo () w3 org> Date: May 19, 2010 9:16:40 AM EDT To: dpreed () reed com Cc: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] Re: German court orders wireless passwords for all
Hi David, the main argument of lawyers with some understanding of networking and telecommunications is the following: The whole legal construct relies on liability for omitted diligence. In Germany, you can be liable if you haven't cleaned snow from the ways in front of your door and somebody falls down and is injured. You always need a not so distant danger, an obligation to care and a damage. So far the legal theory. Critics (including me) now put forward that considering the Internet as a danger is overstated as the Internet today is just part of our life and of the average risk thereof. So considering the Internet a danger is already stretching things a bit. Secondly, we need an obligation to care in relation to the person damaged. The person damaged is the music rightsholder. This means a person with a wifi has to care for rightsholders. Hmmm... As a fallback, they may have applied the theory of third party tort (interfering), where the third party can easily stop infringement while it is extraordinarily difficult to get the infringer himself. But this still sounds fishy as an obligation. The damage is (not so) obvious for music downloads... But wait a minute: They guy provided telecommunication services without fee by opening his wifi. He is liable for the copyright infringement of third parties. But why should he be liable if there are other people providing telecommunication services commercially that are not liable? This will be a serious legal question as the rule of law requires equal cases to be treated equally... I think the court made a turn here that it will not be able to sustain on the long run without also making ISPs and telco operators liable and thus opening the flood-gates for liability campaigns. This is why many people (including me) wait for the opinion. BTW, the emotional reaction of many people against the decision is IMHO caused by the fact that the court negatively sanctioned altruistic behavior (open wifi). And altruistic behavior is one of the foundations of the Web to get critical mass for economies of scale. Best, Rigo On Wednesday 19 May 2010 02:25:46 David Farber wrote:Begin forwarded message: From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com> Date: May 18, 2010 3:41:46 PM EDT To: dave () farber net Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com> Subject: Re: [IP] Re: German court orders wireless passwords for all This sounds like "if somebody discovers your keys in the car, takes the car, and commits multiple murders, you will be prosecuted with the likelihood of capital punishment, therefore leaving your keys in the car should be grounds for prosecuting you for 'intent to commit multiple murder'." Admittedly, you foolishly left the keys in your car, so it's possible to construe you are creating the opportunity for unknowable and perfectly reasonable ranges of all possible crimes. Therefore you are intentionally causing harm. Hmmm... we could use that legal theory to get people who don't use strong passwords in their Facebook account reprimanded for "intent to let people steal your identity and bully somebody to commit suicide". This is a good example of "pre-crime" a la Minority Report. On 05/18/2010 03:05 PM, Dave Farber wrote: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
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- German court orders wireless passwords for all Dave Farber (May 12)
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- Re: German court orders wireless passwords for all David Farber (May 14)
- Re: German court orders wireless passwords for all Dave Farber (May 18)
- Re: German court orders wireless passwords for all David Farber (May 18)
- Re: German court orders wireless passwords for all Dave Farber (May 19)