In a UK case that highlights the mess the law is currently in when it comes to illegal downloads of copyright material, a pub owner has been hit with an £8,000 fine for the actions of a user on the pub's Wi-Fi hotspot.
The unnamed pub was, apparently, operating a Wi-Fi network provided by The Cloud, a firm specialising in public internet access in bars, coffee shops and other retail outlets.
Who's responsible?
According to ZDNet, the civil case brought by a copyright holder is "the first of its kind in the UK", although there are question marks over the pub's liability in the light of pending legislation.
The Digital Economy Bill announced last week appears to class such public internet access providers as 'public communications services' which would leave them exempt from prosecution for the actions of their users.
As the ZDNet report correctly states, "Wi-Fi hotspots... providing access to the internet to members of the public, free or paid, are public communications services."
And who dunnit?
Further still, unless specifically told to do so, there's no requirement for such access providers to keep records of who logged on and when, meaning it would be impossible to identify anyone responsible for illegal activity.
For now, it appears that the hefty fine stands, although we wouldn't be surprised to hear a lot more about the case. Stay tuned for updates.
Your comments (2) Click to add a new comment
dee
November 29th 2009
2. @daveyy It's most likely that the person who downloaded the film has no idea what sort of mess they've caused. What the pub and many others offering free/public access Wi-Fi should do is restrict access to known file-sharing and p2p networks and sites. Have software that filters out and blocks these sites or vastly slows down the download speeds when using bittorrent clients and protocols. I.e. exactly what McDonalds does with its public Wi-Fi!
Alert a moderator
daveyy
November 28th 2009
1. This is nothing short of ridiculous. I feel for the owner of the pub, and if the person who caused this mess doesn't feel some guilt then they've got something wrong with them.
I see no reason why the landlord should have to pay anything, they didn't do anything wrong. If anything, the law is still very much outdated and they need to start basing it on modern technology, what can be done, but most importantly, what people will do. Until then, this will keep happening.
Alert a moderator
Tell us what you think
You need to Log in or register to post comments