Using WiFI to Infringe Copyright – The Moral Dilemma
Untold thousands of people either leave their WiFi networks open or have no idea how to secure them. Inevitably this means they can be used to share illicit files. But what happens when the owner of the network gets blamed for infringing copyright?
Over on TorrentFreak we often get emails from people who have received letters from lawyers who claim that they have been caught infringing copyright by sharing illicit files on the Internet.
The majority of the time these are emails from account holders who did not infringe copyright but are the victim of mistaken identity. Sometimes the anti-piracy tracking company gets it completely wrong and sometimes they trace the correct IP address but blame the wrong guy.
This weekend we received an email which throws up an interesting moral dilemma.
A BitTorrent user from the US visiting his girlfriend who lives in Europe used a neighbor’s open WiFi network in order to download some media. Unfortunately the neighbor received a letter demanding a payment of several hundred euros for copyright infringement.
Clearly the neighbor is 100% innocent and could argue his/her case quite honestly. Unfortunately, as pointed out by the UK Lords recently in a discussion about the proposed Digital Economy Bill, it is impossible to prove your innocence in these cases.
In this case the infringer told us that he’s going to admit to the infringement and hand over his details so that the law firm pursues him instead, which is pretty admirable. But many people wouldn’t be so forthcoming.
If anyone has any intelligent advice for this guy, feel free to post in the comments, but in addition we’re interested to hear what you would do in his situation.
Is it OK for bill payers to take responsibility for everything that happens on their connection? Should WiFi network operators be responsible for securing their networks from intrusions?
Should people really be using other peoples’ networks to infringe copyright or with the introduction of more and more draconian copyright laws, will this be the way of the future?
“it is impossible to prove your innocence in these cases.”
Normal Law still says that you have to prove that the person you are acusing is guilty. You don’t have to prove innocence. An IP Adresse is not a valid prove to tell which person downloaded the file(s)…
But with Money everything is possible, isn’t that right @Industry?
Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt only applies for criminal law. If they go after you for downloading material they’d be doing it in civil court. In civil court it’s not about proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, it’s about proving which party is more likely to be right. If the court sides with the RIAA or MPAA then the downloader has to pay compensatory damages for loss of sales, etc. Of course that’s for US law–in foreign nations it can be completely different.
Wow, what a kind guy. When ever I upload something I steel the bandwidth of around 5 networks at the same time, some of which are unsecured where as some are secured using wep. I’m connected to a vpn all the time when I upload, so its not like any of the owners are going to get in trouble.
Prety bad of me but meh, everyone likes the fast speeds I can give out :)
Regardless of what the law stands, I will use anothers wifi if I need it. This does not mean though that I will not take steps to minimize the risk of the open wifi connection person though. The only problem though is that there are a lot of dumb people I have met who don’t use any protection while using on open wifi and this leads sometimes to the open wifi account holder being questioned.
Really I am sick of all the laws about the internet. I will pirate regardless of what laws are made up. Also the state of the internet is being broke apart with all the new crap coming out. Well guess what, fk whatever sht they throw. I don’t give a rats as s. I will continue to do as always.
Those that give up freedom for security have neither. Winston Churchill.
Down with nwo btw.
http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/is-making-use-of-unprotected-wi-fi-stealing/
Is making use of unprotected Wi-Fi stealing?
@riki skisi
Unless its specifically advertised as open, then probably. Depends on many factors. Does the person have an “all you can eat” plan? What are you doing on the network?
Lets work with a yard as example. My yard is private property, but its not really posted as such (generic SSID) and I have no fence (no encryption). Now, I don’t really care if you cut through it to get somewhere. But, I do care if you and your friends decide to have a party on it.
Cutting through could be analogous to just checking your email on somebody’s “all you can eat” connection. Partying would be using serious bandwidth downloading whatever over an all you can eat connection. And using serious bandwidth over somebody’s capped plan would be analogous to digging up their sod and walking off with it.
Obviously there is a scale here. Not everything is black and white.
Under uk law they need to provide the evidence for a person to be guilty but with internet crime this is difficult without gettin the computer used to infringe or a confession because of the way people share houses…
For example I’m a student with three other students and if I got an infrigement letter I know that they couldn’t prove it was myself the account holder =[ I’m glad that they have to prove that you are guilty and everyone should be able to see this
with unprotected wifi or hackable wifi it could be seen as stealing but you still need to prove who downloaded the illedged files
Sorry MeH, that is all about to change when they pass the Digital Economy Bill (currently under debate in the House of Lords). If this law passes, and watching the debate yesterday made it appear depressingly likely, proving guilt will not be necessary.
Lord Whitty and Lady Miller were pushing for legal oversight in yesterday’s debate but it seemed to fall on mostly deaf ears. Currently concepts like the rule of law and presumption of innocence does not feature in the Digital Economy Bill.
Open WiFi will simply no longer be able to exist in the UK because the account holder will lose their connection after a couple of accusations. Universities and Libraries will not be exempt. No proof will be required.
I am pretty sure that the IP address is not going to be the only victim. If the DEB is implemented my understanding is that the physical address will be denied internet connection for a year. So others at the same location whether family or room mates will all suffer based on allegations of infringement.
I recommend checking it out for yourself and spreading the word about it before it passes. Apparently your government is trying to push it through before the election.
It is impossible to prove negative.
On cases where you blame someone doing something with IP number, you need to show that it was realy that person who was on with that IP number. Like video showing hes/her computer with http://www.whatismyip.com page open in that time when connection was made.
Other words solid evidence. Instead just waveing their corporate dics around.
IP number alone gives only a clue, not solid evidence.
@walrus yes I see your take but everyone should have all you can eat connection. I have refused to buy into the limited agenda of everything such as cell plans and internet. Most cell plans are unlimited nationwide if you look for them anyways as well as internet plans.
I have some advice for him: hit yourself in the head for not using a proxy
Although it is impossible to prove one’s innocence, it is also impossible to prove one’s guilt. In a fair law system, one is innocent until proven otherwise…
In some countries it is “guilty until proven innocent”. At least thats what I have heard.
You are innocent until proven guilty. IPs are not proof of infringement for several reasons. Shows how wicked are the new laws proposed and approved recently.
In any case, laws protecting business models are already failures by themselves but when they protect failing models it`s just epic fail.
This discussion should be taking place in cases people download truly illegal stuff such as child porn using third party unsecured connections. I a major portion of ordinary people are being criminalized by a set of laws, it`s not the ppl that need to change or be changed, it`s the laws. Would you kill some1 is killing suddenly became legal?
I think that`s the true dilemma here…
Obviously this is a sad case, but the fact remains, it’s up to YOU to secure your stuff. Laws vary by region, some ISPs have it right in the contract, anything that happens over YOUR connection is YOUR responsibility.
the person needs to secure their wifi, simple as that. Though they should be able to avoid the fines depending on their ISP’s unsecured wifi policy.
IP addresses and MAC addresses (which is all they ever really have on you) only point to a machine, not the user actually using that machine.
This does not remove the responsibility of the user securing their shit.
If you leave your front door open, and a guy walks in and steals shit, is it Breaking and Entering?
If someone walks up to your unlocked, running, car and steals it, don’t YOU bare some responsibility for that? i’m sure your insurance company would agree.
The system is a sham and we;re guilty until proven innocent, but ignorance of the law is not an excuse, if you don’t want to get sued for something someone else did on your wifi, enable wpa2 and pick a strong password, end of problem.
“the person needs to secure their wifi, simple as that. ”
If noone secured their internet connection, everyone would benefit. There would be a universal (urban) wireless service, and that would be a hugely good thing. But there is all this talk of alleged network “abuse”.
I honestly believe that freedom of information and expression trumps any abuse or commercial interest potential. Alas, those with $$ shout loudest.
Personally, I leave a dedicated unsecured wifi AP running as I deem it a “public service”. I loosely monitor the bandwidth used (and would block MAC addresses of anyone using it excessively: not that I’ve ever had to consider doing this over the past five years). And I fully appreciate that there are “risks”.
But these risks stem from what seem to me to be unjust laws. And everyone has an absolute moral duty to disregard injustice (irrespective of threatened penalties).
I often think it a shame that there is not a greater prevalence of individuals who will do more than express their anger on blogs such as this, and actually make lifestyle choices that reflect their supposedly firmly-held beliefs. In sufficient numbers, we really can make a difference.
Chevron is right. All these threats being sent out and these laws being passed are trying to make all of us look out only for ourselves – cover our own backs. Sharing feels right and natural. The technology out there is best suited for sharing – the reason the Internet started the way it did was because of trust and open networks.
Instead of resisting and challenging business motives for trying to cripple our technology and freedom to share, many of us are happy to do as we’re told in case we’re next to receive one of those nasty letters.
The only one who should get the blame is the Internet Service Provider. Most of them (mine didn’t) don’t tell their customers how to secure their WiFi networks. Imagine the 75 years old lady getting blamed for downloading porn while it’s her neighbour who downloaded the movie. They can’t, I mean CAN’T, blame the customer. The only one to blame is the ISP.
I disagree, hmm, lets say for instance talk talk, the only respectable ISP in your country from the sounds of things gets punished for something you did while all the while they have been protecting you because of simply following the law, what a way to pay back the only one and respecteable ISP in your country man
can’t wait until digruntled employees tart leaving unsecured WAP’s on premise to frame their ex-employers – oh so much fun for the true criminals but more of a threat to society in general by finger pointing…
I’m thinking of opening up my WAP just to keep from being liable for my own traffic.
At the moment open wifi is not a crime. Fon from Fonero and as supplied by BT uses this.as do other free and comercial providers eg airports and the Cloud,etc. The DEB seeks not to outlaw the open wifi but the consequences of open wifi public or private should they be notified of a copyright problem. the bill seeks to criminalize a civil offence in a most vindictive way. IP addresses have been specified in simplistic terms- due process and legal oversights have been ignored or overridden and our legislative process has been commercialised by mandelson and his cronies in a most objectionable way.join the pirate party uk is what i say.
Encryption is very easy to break using the tools available in backtrack linux. It makes this practically invalidated.
Hardware companies which make the devices that are used in these Wi-Fi connections should have set up a default password setting etc, to protect the users of their products. That way, the option of disabling the security protocols is a manual one, so there would be no grounds for the owner to deny responsibility.
It makes no sense for the hardware manufacturers to put their users at such risks.
In this case, the manufacturers should also be sued. The owner can plea limited responsibility.
Who’s to say those doing the suing won’t sue both users and owners equally? Afterall, this would maximise profits for them.
It’s really just lazy evidence gathering.
As a techie, I can tell you that IP and MAC addresses are one way to trace someone, but there are better ways, as those two can be faked. If there was more investigation into the WAP users, things could be better traced to a specific system. Then, when the perp uses that system to access from another spot. It’s nab time.
so basically, if we all run unencrypted wifis and share our connections with anyone else, there would be no way to tell who’s doing what… and that’s probably why ‘the man’ pushes so much on ‘dont let your neighbors use your wifi’. I say LET THEM!
(and yes, I have been sharing my connection for years)