Am 12.05.2010 um 18:37 schrieb Dave Farber:
BERLIN
– Germany's top criminal
court ruled Wednesday that Internet users need to secure their private
wireless connections by password to prevent unauthorized people from
using their Web access to illegally download data.
Internet
users can be fined up to euro100 ($126) if a third party takes
advantage of their unprotected WLAN connection to illegally download music or other
files, the Karlsruhe-based court said in its verdict.
What the verdict says is actually a little more specific, and it's
actually in part good news. Before the verdict, lawyers chasing down
the illegal sharing of copyrighted materials could (and did) make up
horrendous sums of 'damages' that the use of file sharing technologies
caused, sending out large bills to the owners of the specific IP
numbers at the time of sharing. This is now no longer possible, for
there is now the 100 EUR limit on such cases. It's also not a 'fine' in
the sense that it's a money transaction involving the government --
it's actually just between the rightholders lawyers and the internet
user.
It also says that the owner of unsecured WLANs can be held
responsible for any and all copyright violations coming from their
network, even if they were on holiday at that time -- the lack of
proper WLAN protection is the point what makes them responsible.
It'll be interesting to see how WLAN access point vendors react
now.
//Konrad
