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Legal
German court says web-users obligated to make wifi secure
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 14 May 2010
So, this is interesting. Few legal systems around the world are web savvy enough to say anything about wifi. But once the three-strikes anti-piracy system is up and running, someone will plead innocent with a “someone else did it on my wifi network” excuse. And what then? Are wifi hub owners liable for any copyright infringement committed by others on their wireless network? And if so, what can they do passwords wise to avoid liability.
Germany’s top criminal court has ruled that wifi hub owners do have a duty to secure their wireless connections so that others can’t access the internet via their hubs. What’s more, anyone who fails to secure their wifi could face a hundred euro fine if their net connection is then used by another to infringe. Although the court did add that the fined wifi owner could not actually be held liable for any infringement others committed on their network.
The ruling came in a case where an internet user was sued directly by a musician who could show his music had been illegally downloaded and then shared via said user’s IP address. But the accused user showed he had been away at the time of the infringement, so it must have been done by another person using his unprotected wifi network. But the court ruled: “Private users are obligated to check whether their wireless connection is adequately secured to the danger of unauthorised third parties abusing it to commit copyright violation”.
That said, setting up a basic login and password when installing a wifi network would, the German court said, be sufficient to avoid liability for both fine and infringement. Which means German wifi users will not be legally required to constantly upgrade their security settings.
