Digital Economy Act 2010 Is the end of open wifi
The Digital Economy Act 2010 places a number of requirements on internet service providers.
There are bits in the code that seem to suggest that a subscriber has to take reasonable steps to stop others using the service to violate copyright owners rights. e.g. 13(6)(b) allows an appeal on the basis the subscriber took reasonable steps. The new section 124A(1)(b) of the copyright designs and patents act allows a copyright owner to send a copyright infringement report if they believe the subscriber allows a person to infringe their copyright using the service.
These are slightly different. Allowing someone to do something and failing to take steps to stop someone doing something are not quite the same. However, neither of these actually makes the subscriber in some way responsible for the civil or criminal offences that may be committed by a person using the service. It does not make it an offence or moral wrong for someone to allow someone else to breach copyright, or to fail to prevent them doing so. It just means that you might get a copyright infringement report, or if technical measures are taken against you then you might not win an appeal.
So, what if you do run an open wifi?
- Your ISP (e.g. AAISP) may decide that if you are running an open wifi, e.g. as a cafe, then you are providing a service and as such you are buying from the ISP as a communications provider. This means you are not a subscriber of the ISP and no copyright infringement notices to the ISP are valid. Your ISP may also take the view that requests for technical restrictions of your service are also invalid. If an ISP does this then you will simply never appear on their report of subscribers that have had multiple notice, and there seems to be no audit process in the law.
- If your ISP is not so helpful, you get to the point that the ISP takes technical measures and you migrate to another ISP.
Either way, you are not the one breaching copyright, and the fact you are allowing, or not stopping, your users breach copyright does not in itself put you in the wrong. Bear in mind, notices or not, the ISP does not have to disclose your identity without a court order.
