{"id":2383,"date":"2016-05-11T02:47:14","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T09:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?p=2383"},"modified":"2021-11-18T02:40:50","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T10:40:50","slug":"finally-germany-abolishes-open-wi-fi-liability-users-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/finally-germany-abolishes-open-wi-fi-liability-users-behavior\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally: Germany to abolish open wi-fi liability for users&#8217; behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Germany\u2019s ruling coalition has decided to abolish the liability for users\u2019 copyright infringements and other behavior when operating an open wi-fi access point. This weird and anachronistic liability has seriously hampered the organic net growth in Germany and was recently challenged at the European level. The revised law is expected to take effect as early as this fall.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Germany has long been an exception to sane laws regarding open wifi, as access point operators have been legally liable for everything their users do through an open access point. In effect, this has prevented the silver-bullet <em>open wireless defense<\/em> for people sharing culture and knowledge from their homes, but it has also prevented a large growth of random, organic connectivity for startup entrepreneurs (which, coincidentally, is something the legacy industries don\u2019t want to happen).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The liability law was recently challenged by German Pirate Party activist Tobias McFadden, who \u2013 in a limited scenario \u2013 challenged the liability and took it to the European Court of Justice. He had been operating a commercial establishment, providing open and free wi-fi for his customers, and argued that this gave him messenger immunity under the EU e-commerce directive. Very surprisingly for the copyright industry, and embarrassingly for Germany, the advisor to the European Court of Justice agreed with the pirate activist\u2019s interpretation of the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This appears to have set off a frantic activity to remove this embarrassment to Germany, and just today, it was reported that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/netzwelt\/netzpolitik\/stoererhaftung-union-und-spd-einigen-sich-auf-wlan-gesetz-a-1091731.html\">ruling coalition has agreed<\/a> to take out the anachronistic access point operator liability \u2013 the <em>St\u00f6rerhaftung<\/em> \u2013 for good. The revised law is expected to take effect later this year, which is very quick processing, especially for Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This liability mechanism was something that went against two millennia of legal tradition: the messenger immunity (the non-liability for a message carried on behalf of someone else) has roots all the way back to the Roman Empire, and possibly even earlier. This had just been an attack vector from the copyright industry to prevent the future marching ahead, and as usual, if that crushes two millennia of established legal rights and tradition, they wouldn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That held until the case was escalated to the European level where this appeasement to the copyright industry became a German embarrassment. So finally, Germany is being brought into the future where the rest of Europe is \u2013 much thanks to the footwork of individual activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s noteworthy, though Germany\u2019s legislators probably don\u2019t realize this yet, that the elimination of the <em>St\u00f6rerhaftung<\/em> enables use of the <em>open wireless defense<\/em> in Germany, according to a ruling from the Danish Supreme Court (which does have bearing in Germany, as that court ruled on EU directives). Germany is still ripe with the shady practice of <em>speculative invoicing<\/em> \u2013 sending legal threats to people who torrent with \u201coffers they can\u2019t refuse\u201d \u2013 and this change in law will quite likely bring an end to that shady practice, too, once a few people realize they now have the means to fight back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Germany\u2019s ruling coalition has decided to abolish the liability for users\u2019 copyright infringements and other behavior when operating an open wi-fi access point. This weird and anachronistic liability has seriously hampered the organic net growth in Germany and was recently challenged at the European level. The revised law is expected to take effect as early &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/finally-germany-abolishes-open-wi-fi-liability-users-behavior\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Finally: Germany to abolish open wi-fi liability for users&#8217; behavior&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[250,1],"tags":[1195],"class_list":["post-2383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyright","category-news","tag-torrenting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.9 (Yoast SEO v26.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Finally: Germany to abolish open wi-fi liability for users&#039; behavior<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Germany&#039;s ruling coalition has decided to abolish the liability for users&#039; copyright infringements and other behavior when operating an open wi-fi access\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/finally-germany-abolishes-open-wi-fi-liability-users-behavior\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Finally: Germany to abolish open wi-fi liability for users&#039; behavior\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Germany&#039;s ruling coalition has decided to abolish the liability for users&#039; copyright infringements and other behavior when operating an open wi-fi access\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/finally-germany-abolishes-open-wi-fi-liability-users-behavior\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PIA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-05-11T09:47:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-11-18T10:40:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ogimage.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rick Falkvinge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@buyvpnservice\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rick Falkvinge\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/finally-germany-abolishes-open-wi-fi-liability-users-behavior\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/finally-germany-abolishes-open-wi-fi-liability-users-behavior\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rick Falkvinge\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4\"},\"headline\":\"Finally: Germany to abolish open wi-fi liability for users&#8217; 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