UK Pub Owner Fined Due To Unauthorized Downloads On Free Pub WiFi?
from the safe-harbors? dept
A bunch of folks have sent in the story of a nameless pub owner in the UK who has supposedly been fined £8,000 in a lawsuit brought by a copyright holder over unauthorized downloads that were done over free WiFi that the pub offered. Of course, there is a lot of missing information here, so I'm not quite sure how much to believe of this story without further evidence. The name of the pub is not given. The information was provided by a WiFi hotspot provider, The Cloud, which claims that the specific pub owner has not given permission to publicize the case. Yet, if it was a lawsuit, you would think that there would be some court records detailing this. It appears that the laws regarding safe harbors for copyright infringement are not nearly as clear as they are in the US. Under the DMCA it seems that any hotspot owner would have safe harbor protections against such a lawsuit, and it seems odd that a court would fine the pub owner when it was clearly a user of the access point that did the file sharing.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: file sharing, fines, safe harbors, uk, wifi
Companies: the cloud
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The pub is an END USER, not a service provider. That they allow others to connect to their Wi-Fi doesn't suddenly turn them into an ISP. They are the end user, allowing their friends to use their internet connection. By your logic, I could allow my friends to use my WiFi to download, and I would never be liable for anything.
It is a great legal dodge to claim everyone is a service provider, but that isn't what the law was intended to provide.
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Now, I challenge you to prove it was the owner.
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and as Mike mentioned already much details are missing.
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Basically, you fail to acknowledge that the pub is a service provider that subsidizes a paid service. Furthermore, **if** they use a business account they should be treated as a service provider, not an end user. If it is a personal account then, if your friends do something on it, you are liable for it. Cool, right?
Weee, not hard?
Oh yea, why is the pub owner fined and not the pub business? Watah is wrong!
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It isn't clear if the pub owner personally or the pub owner as the business got sued. That information isn't present. Also, the service is provide by "the cloud" which would be the service provider. There is no indication that the pub owner is an ISP. There is also no indication if the service is commercial, residential, or other, and no indication that service was provided to allow resale (even for free).
Further, the story points out the idiocy of the idea that everyone is an ISP, as only the "big six" ISPs are required to retain access records. For someone to claim an ISP exemption, they should have to do all the same work as an ISP.
Read the whole story, and you will see there are more holes in it than quality swiss cheese.
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2.) I'm speculating on speculations from a speculation of speculations. I'm awesome.
3.) Article basically defines any open network accessible by the public as a public communication service that doesn't need to log user data unless asked to by the government. The 6 are required as they, I'd guess, have been asked to by the government to retain the data (And, the article suggests it is subsidized)
4.) Yummy, swiss cheese.
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FTA:
"Wi-Fi hotspots in public and enterprise environments providing access to the internet to members of the public, free or paid, are public communications services"
There seems to be a grey area with regard to records and so on, but the business was a service provider by virtue of, you know, offering a service.
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Prove it WAS the pub owner...
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No, I'm afraid that's backwards. It is up to the accuser to prove who was actually using the service, not the service provider.
The pub is an END USER, not a service provider.
No, that's incorrect. The pub is providing internet as a service to users. It's a service provider under the law, exactly as the law intended.
That they allow others to connect to their Wi-Fi doesn't suddenly turn them into an ISP.
Yes, actually, it does. Under US law this is quite clear. UK Law appears to be slightly more murky, but not much.
By your logic, I could allow my friends to use my WiFi to download, and I would never be liable for anything.
No, you seem to be (totally) misreading how safe harbor rules work. You can still be liable, if it can be shown that you were the user who shared the material.
It is a great legal dodge to claim everyone is a service provider, but that isn't what the law was intended to provide.
Again, you seem to not understand how safe harbors work. You can still go after the individual user -- and if it later turns out to be the owner of the hotspot, then you are still very much liable. You can't just blame the hotspot owner for all use (as you apparently want to do, for some unexplained reason).
And, yes, the law was VERY MUCH intended for this exact purpose. There was great fear that anyone providing a user service would get blamed for actions of users, and thus safe harbor provisions were put in place to protect against that. You might want to look up some of the history of the debates around these things.
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It isn't to "just blame the hotspot owner", but rather to require some level of accountablity. If you want to be considered an ISP, you should have to do all the things that an ISP is required to do, and that should include logging users onto your service. The only way a service provider should be able to be exempt is by being able to show that they themselves were not the end users.
Think about it Mike, what you are suggesting is a totally SODDY defence. You just add an open wireless onto any internet connection, declare yourself an "ISP", and anyone comes to claim copyright violation you just say "SODDY!" and point at your wireless unit.
That isn't the intention of safe harbor laws. It's being used as a dodge. If the pub owner cannot show who used the internet that he contracted for (even a MAC address), he should have some liablity.
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>>he contracted for (even a MAC address), he should have
>>some liablity.
Then who is responsible for perpetuating the desired message of the article? "We need to further incentivize the welfare mentality to further create a nanny state"
With all the cameras installed in London, I find it amazing that they can't find this guy. "Sometime this Summer" What the hell kind of complaint is that? Are you kidding me? What Judge wouldn't dismiss that?
Start seeing this for what it is. It's like your neighbor parked his car outside his house while he went on Holiday. And while he was gone, some kid came by and threw water balloons at it. There's no dents or damage, just broken balloons on the street. Now your fruitcake neighbor is blaming you for not watching his car and wants the court to track him down and give his car a new paint job.
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Nice story, but not relevant. Now, if the neighbor parked his car inside your garage and came back and found it all scratched, you might have something.
The reality is that the "end of the line" for the internet connection is the pub, and thus the pub owner.
There is so much missing in this story, such as "did the pub manager use a home connection instead of a business connection"?
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Actually, no. The pub isn't sticking open wireless onto a random internet connection and declaring itself an ISP. The pub is a hotspot location for internet services provided by The Cloud, which is a genuine ISP - just like T-Mobile and Starbucks.
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Now, if there was infringing content on the pub owner's computer, I think there may be a case.
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Reading the article might be a good idea
eg
According to legal advice sent to The Cloud by the law firm Faegre & Benson on 17 August, "Wi-Fi hotspots in public and enterprise environments providing access to the internet to members of the public, free or paid, are public communications services".
Also the issue of not being a proper ISP because of not keeping records is addressed and dismissed.
(Because the point is that the government has to pay the big ISPs to keep the records)
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Re: Reading the article might be a good idea
I did read the article, and my description remains accurate. I said that the laws in the UK "are not nearly as clear as they are in the US." And that's true. If they were as clear, there wouldn't be a question and this lawsuit would have been tossed out quickly under the safe harbors. The fact that it (allegedly) resulted in a fine suggests some ambiguity in the laws.
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Incidentally I do think that UK law is pretty clear on the point and so the lawsuit should have been thrown straight out - unless there is some extra bit of information that we don't know.
Btw did you read the corrected version of the story?
ERRATUM: In an earlier version of this story, Professor Lilian Edwards was erroneously quoted as saying that businesses would be "be responsible in theory" for users' unlawful downloads, under "existing substantive copyright law". She actually told ZDNet that businesses would not be responsible in theory, and we have amended the story accordingly. (my emphasis)
which makes it pretty clear what the law actually says.
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It's a Scam (Maybe)
The scare story is about an unnamed pub offering free (read: not the Cloud's) WiFi and getting sued.
Implied message from story? Dear pubs, don't offer your own free service and get sued, use the Cloud's service and be safe.
I'm calling BS in the absence of more information.
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Ah... interesting. That would explain a lot...
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Pubs in Britain can be owned privately, although many of them are owned by breweries, and some are franchises. So more information here would help as to who is being held liable. If brewery-owned, the manager would be most likely, otherwise it is likely to be the owner or franchisee.
Contrary to what Phatnobody says, The Cloud provides 'free' wireless services through many outlets - McDonalds being a primary user of their services. Free to the customer of course, but it doesn't stop them charging the pub an arm and a leg :)
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That seems worth an arm and a leg to me.
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But by definition it would then not be free. So something in this story does not add up.
I still think this stands a fear mongering story even if the overall discussion about UK law is valid. I'm pretty sure the Cloud is protected from being sued so whichever you look at it, there are contradictions.
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Logic
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Don't forget to fine the Telco too.
And fine the government for creating laws to allow it!
And the city for licensing the pub!
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That is the true crime here.
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Brittan has again shown how screwed up it is.
Secondly, can anyone prove that a crime of viewing/using copyrighted material was committed, or were bits just received?
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GOOD POINT. For all we know, the claim may be by the AP for an image of Obama by Shepard Farley. Also it says it happened "over the summer" That's an unacceptable window of time. This whole story is bogus. The £8,000 claim is bogus, and someone who can't make money by producting a product, has a welfare mentality. They are wasting everyone's time.
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The story does look a bit bogus
Now certain law firms and "heavies" have been going around extorting money from people with threats that relate to alleged illegal downloading - but since illegal copying is either illegal for both parties or neither they should have a hard time proving anything in court without admitting that either:
1. They were not authorised to distribute the material - in which case they were themselves equally liable for infringement.
or
2. They were authorised to distribute - in which case no infringement has taken place.
The use of the word downloading suggests that the story has been passed on at some stage by someone who didn't know what they were talking about.
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What a load of nonsense
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comment
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New Download Law legally Faulty
As a pub owner in UK has been fined £8000 by the government when one of his customers was caught downloading copyrighted digital content from the pub’s Wi-Fi hotspot do read the following.
Both technically and legally speaking this new Law as to downloading ‘Copyright Material is seriously faulty. As 99% of every WebPage you view be it Google News or other commercial webpage is Copyrighted, hence when you download that page under this faulty law you are committing a crime as it is downloaded into your web browser to enable you to read it.
Hence all such public facilities offering either Internet connection be it Wi-Fi hotspot.or other should consult with a solicitor as to placing a ‘Disclaimer Notice’ in full view of the public, and or getting the user / users to sign a disclaimer disclaiming any legal responsibilities for content viewed or downloaded.
Signed Carl Barron Chairman of agpcuk
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justice
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http://wallmountTV.org
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Tech
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Good info
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