torrentfreak.com — A Germany 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.
Jul 9, 2008 View in Crawl 4
rknightJul 10, 2008
I'm glad to see that. Because, lets think about it, if you happen to leave your car unlocked, and someone stole it and used it as get away car for, say, a bank robbery and there was proof it wasn't you, then you would not be held liable because your car was unlock. Same thing in this case.
bratterscainJul 10, 2008
crossmr, yes, I forgot a MAC address can be spoofed so yes, you're right.
wireddeathJul 10, 2008
A great reason to start sharing wifi!
macparrotJul 10, 2008
I agree. If someone steals my car and runs another person down, am I now responsible for their death? EVEN if I left the keys in the car and had a big neon sign saying "Don't steal me", the burden of responsibility is still on the person who stole the car.
macparrotJul 10, 2008
Not at all. There is an inherent value that is placed on entertainment. If there was no value, we'd call them podcasts (sorry, as a podcaster myself, I call it whistling through the graveyard).The value we place on conceptual concepts like movies, TV shows, popular music depends greatly upon market forces. If a TV show is deemed of no value (as in no is watching it in great enough numbers to garner sponsors) then it is cancelled. If a movie doesn't gather enough box office receipts, it's off to bargain-bin DVD land so fast it would make Pam Anderson's breast implants spin (which I would find entertaining).As much as I despise the tactics of the RIAA and MPAA and believe that piracy of copyright materials to not be nearly as prevelant as their lawyers would like us to believe, they are right about one thing. To not pay for something that is deemed valuable by the owner, even something that is easily reproducable as digital media IS theft from the legal copyright owner.You say you wouldn't have bought it anyway. Fair enough. I feel most modern content like TV, movies, and music is crap (what can I say? I prefer 60s/70s music and other entertainment from that era. My parents hated the Beatles and other than Walter Cronkite, hated most TV as well) and I wouldn't pay for it either. I also don't go to the trouble of using a bit-torrent client to search for it, download it, convert it into a more convienent format and watch it on whatever device I prefer. If you go to that kind of trouble, then yes it has value even to you and it isn't up to you to determine what the price is going to be. If the owner is asking too much, show your displeasure by not purchasing or viewing it.On the other hand I do use Bit-torrent clients to download movies or music that I legally own in formats not easily reproducable (like VHS tapes or old LP albums) for my own enjoyment. I have purchased them and the copyright owner (whoever it was at the time) has been compensated. I see no moral gray area there. If asked, I can provide proof of ownership. It certainly doesn't make the MPAA or RIAA happy or their lawyers, but they have done enough of a diservice to the US and whatever other countries they've managed to get their greedy little mitts into that I really don't care.You speak of archaic notions of property, but even in the digital age, bits have value.
nybble41Jul 10, 2008
MAC addresses don't get past the router. The MAC address you see on an Ethernet frame is the address of the local system that forwarded the packet to you. MAC addresses are thus entirely unsuitable for tracking someone across a routed network like the Internet.