

Finnish court: open WiFi owners not responsible for copyright infringement - DiabloD3
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/finnish-court-rules-open-wifi-network-owner-not-liable-for-infringement/

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gouranga
That's one reason I run my home WiFi like a coffee shop :)

Plausible deniability.

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samwilliams
While this is all well and good, it is probably not a very good idea to
explicitly state your true motive on a public forum. It makes your deniability
substantially less plausible.

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gouranga
Doh!

More seriously, there is not enough information to conclusively identify me on
the Internet from my postings here and the server logs.

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est
This is interesting, how do you prove you left your wifi open while you are
pirating?

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alan_cx
We dont have to prove our innocence now do we? I thought "they" had to prove
our guilt. If that has changed, its game over.

Seems right to me. Does a burglar get off if we leave our back door unlocked?
Not that I know of.

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icebraining
I don't think the person using the WiFi to infringe would "get off" in any
case. Just that the WiFi owner would be guilty _too_.

A better analogy is: if you leave your car unlocked and it gets stolen, are
you also (besides the thief) liable for any damages that the thief might do
with it?

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rdtsc
Further, if you happen do go and do a lot of damage with your car, make sure
to also leave your car open so that you can say that it could have been
someone else doing the damage.

I think deep down that is what the courts are afraid. They are afraid that
cyber-crime will run rampant and they won't be able to earn their keep by
prosecuting anyone because of altruistic individuals who wish to share their
internet connection freely with the world. Then of course, the fear is that
criminal will also open up their WiFi connections so as to provide a plausible
deniability to their crimes.

