Re: German court orders wireless passwords for all

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

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 Internet 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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