Victims of WiFi Theft Not Responsible For Illegal Uploads
Written by enigmax on July 09, 2008A German court has ruled that Internet users operating a WiFi router are not responsible if others use their equipment to infringe copyright on P2P networks. The news is likely to be seen as yet another blow for lawyers Davenport Lyons who have been insisting that German law decisions would be mirrored in the UK.
All around Europe there are instances of individuals receiving demands for compensation due to the fact that their open WiFi routers have been used by others to infringe copyright.
Now, a new judgment has come from the Frankfurt court of appeal. The judges have decided that the owner of an Internet connection is not responsible for copyright infringements carried out without their knowledge on their open WiFi. The same court already ruled that parents are not responsible for copyright infringements carried out by their children.
Lawyers representing copyright holders have long insisted that it is the responsibility of the bill payer to ensure that nothing illegal happens on his connection by taking technical measures to stop unauthorized access by a 3rd party. The plaintiff in this case stated that the IP address of the defendant was tracked making unauthorized uploads of copyright works and demanded damages. The defendant had insisted that not only was he innocent but also away on vacation at the time of the alleged offense.
Regular readers of TorrentFreak will know that lawyers Davenport Lyons in the UK have been sending out many letters which accuse people of copyright infringement when, through ignorance or simple generosity, have simply left their WiFi open for others to use. Davenport state that a previous German court decision has ruled that users are responsible for the infringing actions of others on their Internet connection, and in their opinion UK courts would rule the same. This is the ruling that the Frankfurt court has just over-ruled.
Given this decision, further recipients of Davenport letters should expect to see these comments about open-WiFi liability removed, at least until the highest court in Germany has had the opportunity to review the situation. Describing the decision in Frankfurt as “sensational”, Christian Solmecke, a lawyer currently defending around 500 file-sharers told TorrentFreak: “The future will show us what the highest court in Germany – the Bundesgerichtshof – says to this difficult question.”
Previously: US Pirate Party Study Shatters MPAA Claims
Next: The Pirate Bay Starts its Summer Tour 2008
52 Responses
While it is a kick in the teeth for them, i dont expect them to give up so easily… I think we can expect a spin on this quite soon.. will be staying tuned.
Cheers!
ezee.se
so basically all we need to set up a new track is find two properties and link to each others WI-FI points and we have an arguement against it in court…
sweet, lol
Of course that is a very likeable judgement, but please note that there are other courts who decided different. The situation is not clear till the highest German civil court, the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) judged. It’s not time for celebration yet.
but its at least a good step in the right direction
Ok, i’ll put the champaigne on ice, and the cigars on hold…
In the UK you can still be held responable for it.
what happens to kids that dl torrents?
illegal torrents btw
Many people are not savvy enough to know how to secure their routers. Should these people be penalized because of someone else downloading illegally? I think not.
-_- at least SOMETHING good in the legal scheme happens today
(note: just heard on the TV news that Wiretapping is pretty much going to be legal in the U.S. as well…. waiting until TorrentFreak posts about this >_>’)
Kids get taken away and locked up forever in the record companys dungeons.
Tis true.
Ignore any letters or phone calls unless they are for a court date, and love the button on the wireless which resets it back to factory default (Open) ^_^
what happens if you upload an illegal torrent using a wifi airport signal? should the airport be penalized? would be nice to see that
then those jurks will invent a new law about taking down all wifi conecctions on public places.. lol this world sucks shouldnt they be worried about finding real criminals not some spoiled kids doing pranks?
why bother with all the legal shizzle just use VPN and dont get caught in the 1st place
Jul 09, 2008 at 19:37 by A German Lawyer
while you are right that unlesss we have a “Grundsatzentscheidung” by BGH everything is possible the OLG Frankfurt ressponsible for the country of Hesse here is just one step below that one.
And I doubt that MAFIAA will fight THAT one in front of BGH. The casual mentioning of the OLG about the illegality and not allowance of using of the IP to person data is luring in the back of that judgement.
would MAFIAA fight that defeat where the court did NOT actually ruled about that argument but indicated that if it had too it would have come to the same conclusion as the MAFIAA victim, then would MAFIAA risk their whole “business modell” by filing criminal complains just to get the names since a few stupid DA offices are still playing unpaid private investigator for MAFIAA and hand those guys like “Es soll weh tun”-Rasch the address data of the Victims!
the link to the decision pdf (in DEUTSCH the pdf is!)
http://web2.justiz.hessen.de/migration/rechtsp.nsf/491DC84480D45962C12574810037C35A/$file/11u05207.pdf
Here’s one for you all!!!!!
When getting a new ISP then ask/pay for an installation engineer(he he he if thats what they are) to hook everything up for wireless. Then hack…erm….. connect to your wireless an interesting way. When anyone ask’s then point them to the engineer, who last week was gardener!!!
So who can shed some light on that?
Everyone should just open up their WIFI.
And then just rely on the defence.
It wasn’t me and let the MAFIAA et al try to prove it.
If you’ve got encryption enabled, I expect the presumption would be that it less likely to be accepted as a defence.
Despite the fact even the top level of encryption on most routers isn’t secure enough. (as soon on that Uk tv show – erm.. The Real Hustle.)
“Grundsatzentscheidung”
ummm uh heh heh heh heh.
he said ‘dung’.
easy, as soon as you get a letter, turn your wifi pass off.
@2: Most likely that has already happened – I know the situation has been possible with our house for 3 years!
“linksys” is the default name for networks on their routers, and neither us nor another neighbor ever changed it. I realized after exploring on my Linux laptop that all our wireless computers were jumping between the two routers randomly.
so if you leave your car unlocked, are you responsible for the actions of someone who steals it? I’d say no.
seems like an equivalent argument in my eyes…
XDXDXDXD
this all filesharing users and torrent users need to listen to me i want to tell on this comment that illegal file sharing without companies permission will be downfall of all file-sharing sites and i now people like to listen to music online and download them. I now like people to upload live action movies and TV shows and music and the companies are pushing for ban on File-sharining because of the illegal downloading and this serious issue for us file-sharing users and need to give music and movie and rest of entertainment companies ideas. For us to balance this out some way and the kids and teens who ilegal download well be sent to jail to. beacause of our ilegal downloading online and i want all file-sharing users and torrents users to give companies ideas and or ilegal downloading will be downfall of all file-sharing and torrent sites and we have to give the companies ideas to balance this out and Cartoon fans are not ones ok and the companies just want the live action movies and TV shows and music off the file-sharing sites . And I predict that this ilegal downloading of will be downfall of all file-sharing and torrent sites including legal file-sharing sites everywhere. For people who ilegal download live action movies and TV shows and music will be sent to jail. ANTI-Piracy Groups and wants us to find way to use file-sharing online and torrent sites for for legal downloading of live action movies and TV shows and music. But we have to give the comapies idea for fair copyright law to prevent the file-sharing sites from getting shut down and ideas for upload videos on youtube as well and i now people who love to ilegal download music and tv shows and movie online. we need to give the companies ideas instead of ilegal downlaoding and make use for legal download with companies and to all file sharing users and torrent users have idea to solve the filesharing problem. We will tell entertainment companies that we will delete all the ilegal downloading files of music and TV shows and movies online and in exchange for them to create a site for listening to music online for free and Watching TV shows online for free. the downloading for each song well be based on a price for song up to 5.00 and TV shows up and movies 5.00 and as for the cartoon shows for free as well. Think about it and they will be grateful to us and millions of people who ilegall download will be saved from going to jail or prison and stop getting law sues. For TV show fans once season is aired online will be gone form the site by the companies and to air next season online and think about viacom will help us create this site and we will had help thousands of people world wide and say for instance user torrentfreak049 downloads music for there ipod or lap top and destorying of people stuff Stuff will be gone too and file-sharing will be made legal and the billions of users onlines will say thank you to the filsharing users online and not only that people will share millions of culture videos and online about there dances and colleges as well and thats even half of it. There will be TVs shows from around the world and millions of international TV shows for people to download for price of 5.00 and think about it and thats not all international music to download online for price up to 5.00 is better and the companies will make more money and as for the movies will be limited online and there even more best thing uploading old tv shows online and downloading theme for free such things like road rovers and old movies online and the international online site for listen music and watching TV shows and limited movies online will good for us fileshares and its even better we will cut down the illegal downloading by 90% and this site is for the fans of listening to music online for free online and Watching TV shows and limited movies online and download them for price cheap. they will even boost there dvd sales and lower all dvd sales prices and dvds will be stock out and more will come in and companies will keep make more and more thank us for doing this and the billions of internet users as well. Think about it listening to music online for free and Watching TV shows and limited movies online for free . Think about it international music/video site for internet users everywhere and the copyright laws will be thing of our past. As for the cartoon downloaders and uploaders will just roam the net. File-sharing users and torrent users who made this idea and will go down in international history. international muisc/movie sharing site will be at hand for all internet users everywhere lol. This for our beloved internet as well XD.
pirates can go die a painful death
so if someone steals my car am i responsible for their speeding tickets and any fatalities they may cause?????????????
Anonymous yes dumbass
A substantial number of people here think that the creator is the only one who should have a say on what is to be done for art. This is obviously wrong. Other people have their own ideas on what could be done with the art, and their ideas are as creative as the original creator. When one hears some kind of music, one has one’s own idea of it, and one should be able to create an offshoot of it, or do other things with the music that the original creator has not thought up of.
What, then, is the compensation for artists? The compensation for artists is that it is heard by others, that it has affected other people, and that one has effectively communicated one’s ideas to other people. The purpose of art is essentially the same as the purpose of talking, or speech: the reward is that it is heard, so that others are affected by it.
I have set up a simple pledge so that you can help me with this simple idea:
http://www.28chan.org/pledge.php
I am soliciting the readers of TorrentFreak to support and help my cause.
so should i leave my router open, let people connect and download crap, but in return for using my bandwidth, sniff their packets? sounds like a great trade off.
What a joke. How can a person be held responsible for somethign they clearly did not do or even have knowledge of. the whole world has gone mad!
JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
# 30 I’m going to agree with your last few words, it really seems that way more and more…
@24: you do realize not many people in their right mind would feel like reading a gigantic block of text?
learn to use paragraphs before you go make any proposals or any crap
@25: yes, and you can go die a painful death as well :)
@30+31: I agree the last words too! I wonder now what life would be like when I get out of high school… or college… and then I find what mess this world got itself into -_-
@25: Hey fascist. I hope they black bag you and keep you alive.
You have only one right written in the constitution that has yet to be consumed. Get a gun.
The the owner of the wifi router acts as a provider somehow. If he has no info about his users, how could he be punished ? Usual providers are not punished either.
The Copyright Cartel are not going to accept this.
Time to bribe more politicians.
I use a FON wireless router, anyone can get on it (for a fee), what this does tho, is make it so if someone were to upload illegal info anywhere on my network, it could be blamed for the random person using my wireless router, keeping the blame off of me
@ LordRoy
Dosen’t FON slpit the connections; IE U use “one” and the other is “Public”? Also i`’d have though torrent would have been blocked/throttled over FON? Can u confirm.
Also might be worth using a MAC address changer on ya LAN cards. Time to muddy the waters further :)
What i would do now is Change my MAC LAN address, Open my router, Sniff sum one using, lock it back down & keep a Sniffed capture of sum 1 else using it & use as proof that i am not the only person using my Wifi
Muahah, take that! Now PROVE it was me :)
“Muahah, take that! Now PROVE it was me :)”
They don’t need to just to make you pay!
if you come up to the jduge with all that stuff you posted, he will rule that you are indeed not technology illiterate, that you have the ability to secure your connection adequately-
Since there were uploads from “your” IP, but you did not make sure that would not happen….
Bam! Congretulations Mr technology litterate you must pay them! German civil liability law calls that “Störerhaftung”. It doesn’t matter that they can’t prove it was you. since it’s your connection you are responsible!
So, showing technology litteracy is counterproductive before german civil courts!
@27
you are an idiot, go back to your message boards you overweight loner
My router reset it self on every thunder storm and it takes only half hour to someone to ubuse it.
I think this is a pretty good loophole for legal piracy now. All you have to say in court is “my WiFi wasn’t encrypted” and the defense gets thrown out. Good for that.
@fdefault
no it’s not. (a pretty good loophole for legal piracy now.)
You are misreading the decision too (if you have read it that is of course ;-).
If you have not encrypted your wifi, then you are liable “per se” (that’s the Störerhaftung thingy).
No loophole here opened from that decision.
It is just that this time the contentindustry lawyers (I suspect it were the “Logistep-Abmahnkanzlei Schutt-Waetke” [heise quote!]) here that just did a totally incompetent and sloppy job!
They totally fuxxed it up and did even demanded stuff that they are clearly not entitled to demand according to the court (That’s the 2.) part; “The plaintiff [b]a fortiori[/b] does not have an entitlement for damages and costs. An iterferer liability (”Störerhaftung”) just gives ground for an injuction demand, but never a demand for damages.
now “THAT” is Hesse!
database system that invalidates the resulting query URL :-(
[no wait, it did not. TF just ommited the "$" in front of "file".
lets try again]
http://web2.justiz.hessen.de/migration/rechtsp.nsf/491DC84480D45962C12574810037C35A/$file/11u05207.pdf
The only issue with this is that if they get your harddrive … then they can still fuck you over. so just dont let em get your harddrive… 40 lbs of charcoal and an aircompresser should be enough to make a forge hot enough to melt the harddrive beyond all repair.
ligtherfluid 5 dollars on visa debit card
charcoal 20 dollars on visa crebit card
hotdogs, ketchep, mustard, rolls 11 dollars on visa credit card
aircompressor 60 dollars on visa credit card
new harddrive 100 dollars on visa credit card
riaa suit 10,000 dollars NOT on visa debit card.
fucking over the recording industry and saving yourslef over 9700
PRICELESS!!!1! =D
omfg stoopif ppl that use wep or open networks guys i advise u to use wpa-2 personal as an encrytion method as it is impossilbe to crack where as a wep is like 5 mins for me :)
Encryption is great, but I find MAC filtering and no SSID broadcasting to be fantastic ;-)
I am soliciting readers of TorrentFreak.com for support in a pledge to help me in an effort to reform copyright law and hand over power to the common person. I am trying to create an open discussion on what should be done.
Here is the pledge:
http://www.28chan.org/pledge.php
@24
If you refuse to use your brain instead of a spellchecker, please at least look for homophones. “No” as an incorrect spelling of “know” is less confusing than “now.”
(”and i now people like to listen,” etc etc)
Actually, I take that back – please` just stop typing uantil you learn to use your brain. All of that garble almost asphyxiated my brain.
I love to steal WiFi :)
I love to steal WiFi… in fact, I’m stealing it right now!… hahahahaha (evil laugh)
stealing WiFi and downloading porn ahhhh the life =D
hi guys im just waiting for my court date to come through agghh!!! not good about the four guys that got proven guilty though they werent there.
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