A British pub has been fined £8,000 because someone using the WiFi there allegedly committed a copyright infringement. Even though British law exempts people who provide Internet access from liability for their users' copyright infringements, the pub was still fined (the details of this are confused).
Graham Cove told ZDNet UK on Friday he believes the case to be the first of its kind in the UK. However, he would not identify the pub concerned, because its owner -- a pubco that is a client of The Cloud's -- had not yet given their permission for the case to be publicised...Pub 'fined £8k' for Wi-Fi copyright infringement (Thanks, Zoran)According to internet law professor Lilian Edwards, of Sheffield Law School, where a business operates an open Wi-Fi spot to give customers or visitors internet access, they would be "not be responsible in theory" for users' unlawful downloads, under "existing substantive copyright law".
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That's just disgusting. Maybe someone should fine The Cloud for assisting in criminal activity. Or any British city that has a free wi-fi zone, they're accomplices to illegal downloads too, I'm sure.
Usually public wifi is slowed down by morons running torrents without limits. Annoying.
Stupid law in general. But even if the technology to identify copyright material passing through a point existed how would you identify between the allowed process of accessing legitimate web pages and streamed content and the not allowed archiving of said material. You can't just snoop the stream you have to know what the client intends (note the future tense there) to do with the data.
"existing substantive copyright law"
Mandelson'll fix our broken copyright laws, oh yes. I'm just waiting for the time that humming a copyrighted tune will provoke an on-the-spot fine.
Wow. Wouldn't a humming flashmob be something?
This just the beginning. There are substantial core recording/media industry profit issues driving the bus here.
Wait til you see them start hauling grandma off to jail in her house-shoes, because the cable account is in her name and the little tweener next-door downloaded a Disney movie on Limewire.
Brace yourself for the horror, it's coming!
The details of this are very sketchy.
Is it possible there wasn't actually any court case, but merely a threatening letter from a rights holder and a pup landlord that didn't understand their non-liability?
Surely if this had actually gone to court, there would be a record of which pub it was?
I suspect this is another example of the shake-down scam that certain law offices in the UK are running.
This is actually a smart move on the part of copyright holders- since people still download files illegally, go after the internet providers. Sign deals with the big ones, scare the small ones with fines, and soon policies will become so restrictive, you won't be able to download your own videos back down from youtube.
I don't condone downloading stuff for free, because I think the majority of people are doing it not for the benefit of creativity and education but because they're cheapskate jerks. At the same time I want to slap copyright holders upside the head for not understanding that they are not helping themselves at all by chaining up the media.
Right, so I register my house as a business, unlock my wi-fi, and turn it into a "hotspot". Anything illegally downloaded thereafter was done by some hit-and-run criminal, who needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the law... when you catch him, Your Honour.
i've never come across this problem, but judging by your previously stated pride in texting while driving, It amazes me you have any complaints about how other people abuse the public sphere for their own jollies.
[citation needed]
Remember the good old days when the music industry made money from good music rather than relying on suing somebody?
ummm... To take this to the logical conclusion, wouldn't the post office be liable if somebody got mailed some warez?
sigh.. the uk (and the us) are going to ruin the internet. It's only a matter of time. Why cant we have nice things?
Very true. The local council could be charged as well if you used their roads to travel to obtain copyright material you don't have the rights to.
These laws are *stupid*....and demonstrate how much in the pocket of the media interests your MPs are. If you aren't politically active on this issue, then bend over - you're gonna enjoy what comes next.
Pardon my verbosity here...
There is only one thing to remember about copyright:
No one can place copy limitations upon the copy right of others, and all original works are automatically copyright by their creator, allowing that creator to opt to impose limitations, or not, and where no limitations have been expressed by that creator, none are implied by the copyright, and it is legal to copy such copyrighted material, as intended by the copyright holder.
The Media cartels have been attempting to create a new blanket "copyright" where they presume to impose their own copyright limitations upon -all- copyrights, including those of their competition, which is the motivation for their anti-competitive assault on copyright law.
The Media cartels have NO right to place limitations upon the copy rights of others, including their competition, and just as they do not own the music industries, neither do they own copyright.
Any attempt to change copyright law assaults all copyright holders who do not agree with such changes, meaning the majority of media producers.
No one can change copyright laws without infringing upon the copy rights of others, where copyright law hands all power over an original creator's works to that creator, to place limitations upon, or not. None is the default.
The war on Copyright commenced as a solution by the RIAA to prevent the public from thinking it is legal to freely download the free music of their competition with whom they could not fairly and legally compete, and to perpetrate the public perception that all music is copyright by those media cartels that the majority of music producing copyright holders compete with.
The practice of imposing limitations upon ISP's in a blanket manner, serving the interests of just one or a few copyright holders (the media cartels), against the needs and interests and legal business models of their competition, which out numbers them, is an anti-competitive practice, favoring a minority of copyright holders above the interests of the majority, and perpetrating the public perception that all copyright material can NOT be copied legally, while their competition's business model relies upon the public understanding that the media cartels do not speak for the copyrights of their competition, which copy right they are still vigorously assaulting, a decade after the covert war on independent artists was announced and instigated.
It is unacceptable for some minority of copyright holders to have enacted public laws related to the policing of their own minority of copyrights, as though all copyrights were theirs to limit, as such, and as though it is appropriate to impose laws serving some copyright holders while assaulting the businesses and interests of the copyright holders they can't compete with, who do not approve of ISP's being shackled in service to their competition by anti-competitive government laws.
The mass victimization of competing copyright holders and their customers, by the media cartels, is a very serious ongoing problem modern society faces.