from the courts-disagree dept
Remember just over a week ago the good news coming out of Germany concerning an appeals court ruling that noted (properly) that the owner of an open WiFi access point
was not liable for actions done by others on that WiFi? Well, apparently there's a bit of a "split" in the German courts. An anonymous reader sends us notice of a news report out of Germany with a lower level court
apparently ruling in the exact opposite way (link in German, translations welcome; here's
Google's translation). From what the submitter and the translation suggest, the court claims that it's the responsibility of the access point owner to secure the WiFi, and if they do not, they have to take on some liability for what happens on that system. There's no question, apparently, that the owners of the WiFi system did not actually share the file in question. They showed they were not at home at the time of the alleged infringement, and they had no file sharing software on their computer. While the case isn't yet over, the owners of the WiFi access point have to pay court costs, lawyers fees and the amount they were sued for... and they may face criminal prosecution as well.
Filed Under: germany, liability, open wife, wifi
