Germany's Wi-Fi Shortage Set to Ease as Merkel Backs New Bill | Hacker News Reader

Germany's Wi-Fi Shortage Set to Ease as Merkel Backs New Bill

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106 pointsjeo1234108 comments

I'm currently suffering two copyright infringement cases, which I can only assume are the result of the storm that reset my FritzRepeater back to factory settings, leaving an open bridge into my network.

Two copyright claims, from two law firms, for albums I've never heard of, at times that I wasn't in the house.

Because of an arcane, but largely logical German law named "Störerhaftung" I am by default responsible, and have to pay both claims (in the order of €5,000 each). I have no recourse.

Tech-savvy as I am, powerless to defend against a case such as this, where do I stand, I could theoretically bring a case against AVM Deutschland (manufacturer of the Fritzrepeater) but then the burden is on me to prove their buggy software failed, and reset to factory settings.

An impossible situation, and I hope that laws such as these move in the direction of transparency, the Störerhaftung is designed to make sure that someone who loses out always has someone to claim against (common other uses, are for example if drunks throw stones from the top of a building, and then run away, the building owner is responsible, in lieu of finding and proving that the drunkards were responsible) - it's arcane, and whilst well intended, and the "terrorism" argument holds strong, this is about copyright, and always maintaining the Störerhaftung right.

You (most propably) don't have to pay anything.

Source: http://www.arag.de/auf-ins-leben/udo-vetter/filesharing-oft-...

If you want to read more from the same lawyer, his blog is available at lawblog.de

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterlassungserklärung

I think that is what you need.

Oh no, Unterlassungserklärung should be the last resort. Usually the content mafia lawyers have no interest in fighting cases in court, the risk is too high. Get a lawyer and see how they won't go to court.

Not without consulting a lawyer first.

If you signed one of these in the past and get "caught" again, you're in even worse trouble than you would be otherwise. The last thing you want to do is give them more ammunition against you.

Do you have given anybody else access to your network? Court decisions have changed in the last few years and e.g. room mates or kids made the case unclear enough (e.g. parents don't have to do stuff to stop their kids from file sharing if they don't have indications that it is happening)

I've heard a lawyer mention that (in Germany) in these cases you should actually abstain from any remarks like "my kids didn't do this" because if you rule out all other possible suspects you only leave the default: yourself. As long as there are other possible suspects, the court is a lot more likely to dismiss the claims.

So, yes, if you shared the access with others (even your own family), that fact may be a get-out-of-jail-free-card. Just don't make the mistake of trying to protect them (there's no need to anyway -- as long as they don't make that mistake either).

Sadly there are still a lot of these frivolous lawsuits and the standard practice is to ask for a ridiculous fee and to sign a cease and desist (don't ever do this without talking to a lawyer -- otherwise you can suffer even worse consequences if additional claims pop up, even if they concern things you did before signing the document).

Most cases aren't taken to court. Courts have decided against these firms in the past and the general climate is turning against them. I've got similar claims (but only 500€) and the lawyer firm stopped bothering me after I've said I'm running a freifunk.net router (which I'm doing) - freifunk.net are having a "war" cash depot and want to go to the BVerG to end finally end this madness. You can follow the drama here: http://freifunkstattangst.de/

The new law is btw. not helping at all. It's lobbying by said lawfirms that bother you and me and in practice things likely will turn out worse. See http://freifunkstattangst.de/2015/09/16/die-bundesregierung-... for details.

If it's Waldorf and Frommer tell them you are cooperating the freifunkstattangst.de and mail them. They dropped at least my case out of fear (or rather tactics on their behalf).

It's a scare game these lawyers are playing. It's ridiciolous that this is still a thing. However most lawyers are profiting of it and the majority of Bundestag members are lawyers. For a (kind of unfair) comparison see here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsberatungsgesetz#Geschich...

That's a really unfair system Germany has for itself. And I tend to sympathize with copyright holders over pirate.

If they are going to just hold you responsible by default, 5,000 Euros is way to high. I could see like 100 Euros, like a steep parking ticket.

Damn that sucks.

Likely they are doing X euro damage pr song, pr album.

And they are free to do so, as most copyright law is written based on the assumption of for profit copying. Meaning that said law assumes the person responsible is doing it industrially, and therefore has deep pockets.

These are assumptions that belong back in the Gutenberg era. Yet any time the call to modernize copyright law, the legislators stay well away from actually considering the assumptions that copyright is based on.

Setup a donation page, I'll chip in.

> Because of an arcane, but largely logical German law named "Störerhaftung" I am by default responsible, and have to pay both claims (in the order of €5,000 each). I have no recourse.

"Störerhaftung" does not make you liable. It only allows for injunctive relief, not damages [1].

What's creating problems is that the courts make a (rebuttable) presumption that the owner of an internet endpoint is also responsible for copyright violations (and torts in general) arising from its use.

[1] http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_bgb/englisch_bgb....

[2] http://www.offenenetze.de/tag/sekundare-darlegungslast/ (German only, sorry)

How do you know that they don't just flat out lie about these files being downloaded by your IP?

In Poland company bought out rights to one porn movie, then claimed to the police that that file was downloaded by random ip addresses (out of major providers pools) on torrent. Police ordered the companies to release home addresses of those ip users. Then the company slent email demanding settlment money. Some people paid. Now they are suing the company to get their money back. So many people police about this that they issue public statement that there was nothing criminal and they dropped the case.

This bill is actually heavily criticized in germany, for example by the Freifunk initiative: http://freifunkstattangst.de/2015/06/16/neuer-tmg-entwurf-zu... (german)

The bill requires network operators to make "reasonable effort to secure the network against unauthorized access" and to "allow access only to users that have agreed not to violate the law during their use" of the network.

The bill also takes service providers into liability if they offer "gefahrgeeignete Dienste" (I have no idea how that accurately translates to english).

Heise has more information in german: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Bundesregierung-besch...

I think "gefahrgeeignete Dienste" could be translated as "services with potential for dangerous misuse", no?

Like serving a knife and a fork?

Or a room containing flammable gasses like Oxygen.

> The bill requires network operators to make "reasonable effort to secure the network against unauthorized access" and to "allow access only to users that have agreed not to violate the law during their use" of the network.

Can you elaborate on why this is bad?

Would a bad person actually refuse to agree with not breaking the law? A 'bad' person already has a willingness to not follow the rules, so how would an agreement matter?

I think the point is to clearly shift the moral hazard away from the provider to the user. The user may not uphold the agreement, but then they are clearly the morally wrong party.

Why not simply give the moral hazard to the user by default? If I give someone a pen and paper and they use it to write a letter ordering a terrorist attack, am I morally responsible for the attack simply because I didn't get them to agree to use it lawfully?

> Why not simply give the moral hazard to the user by default?

I agree, but in this case the German law has very clearly decided that this is not the default. And so this new law is seeking to address that.

Isn't there some meta rule about the first world countries law systems (us excluded) that the only crimes you are responsible for are the ones you personally commited?

Few things: Firstly, this is about civil cases, not crimes. Secondly, the wrongdoing here is allowing someone else to use your internet connection to perform illegal actions, not those actions themselves. Thirdly, in any law system I can think of there are crimes you can commit by literally doing nothing (neglect). For example, in Germany it's a crime to know about a planned murder and not do anything about it.

Joint enterprise would be one example of someone being responsible for a crime they did not commit.

Well, for one, it still effectively prohibits public wifi...

> providers won’t be held liable as long as they secure the network properly and get users to agree not to act illegally

Of course they had to include that paragraph, forcing everyone to tick some stupid check-box. As if the cookie agreements weren't enough already.

I'm really trying to understand how anyone can think this is sensible. Maybe 20 years ago when these laws were written by people who had never used WiFi at a cafe before, but surely everyone involved with writing this bill intuits that this sort of a measure is utterly worthless and just induces frictions. Maybe it enables prosecution later for lying? Hard to believe they think that outweighs the costs.

Did you ever take a look who sits in the European Parliament and European Commission?

Introducing Günther Oettinger, the European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society: (wait for his English at the 0:20 mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88OGXLFpeMw

As a German I am completely embarrassed.

wait, you're embarrassed because a politician has an accent when speaking English?

No, because his english is horrible, and then he said, during a press conference "we’re here in Germany, we talk Deutsch!".

In general, his english is so bad that it’s become some kind of running gag.

> No, because his english is horrible, and then he said, during a press conference "we’re here in Germany, we talk Deutsch!".

You're confusing Westerwelle with Öttinger.

Öttinger said the same, too. Extra3 made fun of him for copying Westerwelle.

It doesn’t change anything anyway.

Calling it an accent is an understatement.

He's basically reading off a script word-by-word with German phonemes. He sounds like a first year English student forced to read out loud from a text book he's never read before.

It's not that he has an accent. It's that his English skills are ridiculous for the position he is in. English is taught throughout all high school education in Germany and fluency in English is required or at least recommended for the vast majority of jobs.

He's not just any politician either. He's not some lowly drone in a communal government branch. His office involves a lot of international communication and English is the standard language for most of it.

But there's a bias here: he's mostly ridiculed by younger Germans. His English (just like Merkel's) is on par for his generation. It's not entirely ridiculous when you consider that he likely grew up in times when learning English wasn't considered as important as it is now -- my grandmother speaks no English whatsoever and my parents-in-law just barely understand some basics.

If young Americans groan about their presidents' "dad jokes", this is more like being embarrassed by your grandparents.

He should run for President of the United States, he's already ahead of most of the Republican nominees.

So I get that his poor English is a sign of his age, and that older folks are less likely to grok tech. But I'd still wager he has used WiFI before, and should be able to understand how useless but still costly those click-to-agree screens are.

Better english wouldn't help hiding his incompetence. https://twitter.com/lino/status/558222792496537600

Is that really why we have these? The illegal act is still illegal, so they just want to be able to tack on additional charges?

They do it for taxes in the US: "Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity."

http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/28/news/economy/illegal-income-...

Maybe they could do the same thing for premises, where by entering a restaurant or any other business you must sign a waiver even if you're just browsing.

When and why did the stupid cookie agreements ever start?!

I think the agreement was a record that the user was informed.

Here though, can you claim innocence because you weren't informed that doing illegal things on this wifi network were actually illegal?

When? 2011. Why? Privacy. But tracking companies have decided that instead of giving users the privacy the law was meant to deliver, it was preferable to ruin their browsing experience to obtain 'consent'.

They really need some tech-savy people in politics. As long as they don't know what they are doing, we are screwed.

> as long as they [...] get users to agree not to act illegally

Is forcing everyone to set up captive portal pages just so people can check a stupid box on a form going to make anyone's life better? Is it going to benefit anyone in any way? I can't understand how anyone could possibly think that this requirement is a good idea.

Germany is no longer going to be one of the only places on Earth which punishes Wifi providers for what users do while on their network? I may actually be able to choose between more than 3 different cafes' that offer Wifi from my half of the city? (One fewer than a month ago.)

Wow. That would actually be fantastic thanks for getting on that.

France does as well

Yes, but they have introduced new practical rules for simplified user registration.

And anyway they're not as restrictive as the Germans. For some fun, check GEMA vs Youtube: https://apps.opendatacity.de/gema-vs-youtube/en/

GEMA vs youtube is not really related.

Oh, that explains. I've always wondered why there are so incredibly few hotspots in Germany - and the few existing hotspots are paid. Voiced it a few times to Germans but nobody knew it was because operators would be held liable.

Because it’s usually not an issue. In my city, we have open hotspots in most of the downtown areas and in all the shopping malls anyway – since 2011. It’s not like this new bill would change anything anyway, as providers just showed a "if you tick this box, you are liable, not us" page upon connecting to the network.

Yeah, it's not common knowledge how the law works for public providers. Most people just know that keeping their own WiFi unprotected is dangerous.

That said, this seems to slowly change. Long-distance bus services have sprung up recently (I think there was a change in regulations) and a lot of them provide free, no-hassle open WiFi. Of course they tend to block the big streaming sites (e.g. YouTube) due to the bandwidth limitations, but it's still better than the WiFi you get on long-distance express trains (which requires you to have an account with the network provider and AFAIK isn't free).

May I introduce you to Freifunk:

They're basically working around Störerhaftung by channeling the traffic over a gateway as an ISP. Everyone can offer up part of their traffic, and there are quite a few members (as shown in the local groups, they have maps). Feel free to use some of our traffic, for example. No problems so far.

http://freifunk.net/en/

> as long as they secure the network properly

How do I prove it? This right here is so abmahnung trolls can keep on threatening

> and get users to agree not to act illegally

Yet another useless popup, cookie popup is not enough

> ”digital agenda” aimed at blanketing the country with high-speed Internet by 2018

A yeah, "VDSL for all". Where do I buy VDSL modem in 2018? I will have to break into Technisches Museum and steal one (no, I don't want your "free" fritzbox)

Why don't you want a Fritz!Box? If the internet comments are to be believed, they are the best routers in Germany. [0]

[0] Note: I'm a USian who is rather happy with his EdgeRouter Lite + UAP-AC-LR.

Nothing in particular against Fritzboxes, it's just there is plethora of good producers and devices and I like to have a choice. Fritzboxes are everywhere in Germany, by strange coincidence retailers expose them in the most visible spots, many ISPs promote them heavily by offering them for "free" or very cheap with their subscriptions. In the same time it's quite impossible to buy a plain VDSL modem and most VDSL capable routers cost well over EUR 100.

Oh here is my chance to complain about this pet peeve! My provider gives you a Fritzbox with you subscription, I called them a few times that they should use their mass-purchase leverage to demand better functionality but of course the poor support people couldn't make that happen even if they understood what I was getting at :) Fritzboxen are praised across the internet as great routers, but they won't even let you

- change the default host name suffix - assign static host names for internal use - see which device uses how much bandwidth (only the total - yeah great, now I have to hunt for which machine/mobile is uploading all those photos to dropbox) - block machines from the network, and/or throttle bandwidth. It looks like you can do it, but the implementation is useless - yes you can prioritize smtp over http, hurrah! Everything bandwidth-hungry in 2015 goes over http, and then it's all-or-nothing on fritzbox.

This is an issue across many EU countries, that require by law that WiFi providers track what their users do online, and to keep a permanent record of it. Its onerous to implement and support. I believe it arose from anti-terrorism legislation.

It also feels like Stasi era nonsense. If someone borrows my phone, must I record the call?

Yes obviously, how do you prove it was not you who made the call?

Voice? Being provably somewhere else when the call was made?

Voice -> it is not recorded by default by anybody unless you are under the spotlight.

Prove you are somewhere else -> can you prove you were somewhere else 24/7? I bet you can not.

If you don't have the voice then you can't say I made the call. Only that it came from phone registered to me. I can't disprove that if that happened.

No, but the contents will be attributed to you...

Thanks Merkel for the small mercies! I do know of at least one free WiFi providing service in Germany - "Freifunk Saar".

https://saar.freifunk.net

From the "WLAN" café I spent 2 weeks to find in Kiel (currently in a seminar, no internet access), and having just paid my €40 bill for 6 GB (bad) 3G Internet this month, I fully approve this bill.

I also hope at some point cellular internet will get cheaper in Germany... France 20€ 20 GB, Latvia 10 € 20GB with LTE, Germany 500MB 12€.

What? I pay 15€ per month and have 5GB. And when I exceed that I can pay 3€ again to have full speed.

ALDI Talk/MedionMobile

O2. 28€ / 5 GB + 10€ "Datensnack" (exceed). The 500 MB thing is a commercial I saw a few days ago "LTE Einsteigertariif" with a flat rate telephone. Actually not that bad, but 500MB LTE...

I have a feeling I'll switch soon. I just took O2 because I had a good experience with their prepaid rates, and having checked T-Mobile and Vodafone I didn't find it better.

I've just signed up to WinSIM who are O2. They have some good cheap packages if you are a low user of SMS and calls but do use data. I'm paying €4,99 per month for 1GB. Calls are €0,15 per minute. I've just started so I'm not sure what the catch is yet!

> From the "WLAN" café

Is there any other country which calls WiFi as WLAN? I have traveled to many countries in Europe but I assume Germany, France and Luxembourg seem to be the only countries that use this term.

Never heard it in France (in France you usually use the word LAN or WLAN for local networks, as it should be).

I think the proximity of the place I visited in France to the German border might have a role in the "WLAN" term usage.

Maybe that's because it stands for Local Area Network?

WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) are not long distance networks so it's a correct term.

A WiFi network is a WLAN but not all WLANs are WiFi networks.

WiFi is a trademark used for certified devices that adhere to the rules defined by the WiFi-Alliance consortium.

Is a WiFi powered directional link between two towers really a WLAN? ;)

Yes, unless your towers are that far away from each other that the distance would be considered a "large geographical distance" making it a WAN (Wide Area Network).

Just a sidenote: I think the reason the term "WiFi" never caught on in Germany is that

1. It sounds really awkward in German (most speakers will pronounce the "W" as in German, i.e. "Vi-Fi").

2. WLAN is easier to say (think "V-LAN").

3. It can easily be confused with "HiFi" (which, btw, is commonly pronounced as "Hi-Fee" for some reason, creating additional confusion about the acceptable pronunciation of "WiFi" in German).

Another interesting(?) note: unlike WLAN, LAN is commonly pronounced with a long "a" in German. I'm pretty sure I've heard the word "LAN" used a lot less since WiFi became so widely used and most people seem to just use the German word "Netzwerk" (network) or even simply "Netz" (net). Confusingly, a lack of "Netz" ("Ich hab kaum Netz" -- "I have barely any net") can also refer to mobile connections (because "Handynetz" = cellular network -- and yes "Handy" is a faux-English word commonly used in German to refer to mobile phones because marketing is stupid).

I'd guess HiFi is pronounced Hi-Fee as it takes the "fi" sound from "High Fidelity".

Sure, but then WiFi would be expected to be pronounced the same -- yet I've never heard it pronounced as "Wi-Fee" in English.

Everyone except the British call it 'wee-fee' in Europe (well, I can't claim to have a representative sample for everyone, but at least among those I've heard about it)

I was already starting to think that I was the weird one.

> 1. It sounds really awkward in German (most speakers will pronounce the "W" as in German, i.e. "Vi-Fi").

This would hold true for Dutch too but I don't think WLAN is used in the Netherlands. Permanent residents may confirm.

Each time Germans are passing any internet related laws or their brave lawyers are winning another case against evil Facebook/Google I'm just facepalming. They keep on hurting themselves, which part of the internet is so difficult they are not capable of understanding?

Can we shut down GEMA while we're at that?

Why? They are trying their best to collect a fair fee for artists. YouTube are the ones that have decided that those rules shouldn't apply to them and rather than accept those laws they use their own site as propaganda to blame GEMA. What you get presented on YouTube isn't telling the whole truth by any means. It is really annoying as a YouTube user in Germany to have so many music videos blocked, but that is what Google want you to feel. They appear to be doing a very good job of it by the sound of it!

The reality is that GEMA and Google are both acting like children over the matter that has been going on since 2009. Both are to blame but the only thing users see is that it is all GEMA's fault.

The issue needs to be blamed on both.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_YouTube_videos_i...

While you're right that the youtube issue is more complicated than "google good gema bad" it's an interesting assessment that the GEMA is trying to collect a "fair" fee for the artist. The GEMA is in dire need of reform on the fair front and on a couple of other issues as well. For example, only the upper 5% of the members get to vote on the distribution of funds, classical music gets ranked higher etc. The goal of the GEMA is a fine one, but over the years the institution has gone somewhat astray.

For german speakers I can recommend http://www.internet-law.de/2012/05/ist-das-system-gema-unfai... as summary.

12 cents per view? That's insane!

Is that why Wi-Fi is so bad all over Berlin?

In Berlin? Impossible, it's European startup hub! /s

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