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Comment by sdoering | Hacker News Reader

In Germany you, as the owner of a internet access point, are liable for whatever some person does with this line.

It is called 'Störerhaftung'. That way it doesn't matter who exactly did illegal you download stuff. You are liable non the less.

Funny thing though - the moment you are an incorporated ISP you do not fall under this concept anymore.

That is by the way the reason free WiFi isn't that available in Germany.

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That's a really stupid law and it's one of the reasons why Germany is so far behind when it comes to building great internet/tech startups.

I'm just curious: are you arguing from that it's a stupid law from a moral perspective or a pragmatic one? I might disagree with these policies philosophically, but I've never seen evidence that they were anything but ruthlessly efficient at achieving their desired ends.

From a pragmatic perspective, if the law has enough unintended and undesired consequences, it has failed.

I mean...if your desired end is to prevent free wifi availability nationwide (and the various benefits that provides, access to information and job listings and community and such), regardless of socio-economic strata, and to ensure that any security issue (weak passwords, out of date firmware, a zero day) makes an end user legally culpable, all to help protect a content industry predominantly located outside your nation, then sure, chalk that up as a success?

> to ensure that any security issue (weak passwords, out of date firmware, a zero day) makes an end user legally culpable

That might actually be a good idea.

Yes, let's make non tech savvy people liable for keeping track of zero day exploits. While it might make some people more aware, I think in large part it would just push people off of the internet.

Yeah so that my Grandma who had Comcast install her router should definitely be legally culpable when there is a firmware issue with the router, or when the installer sets up a weak password (or none at all). I think you are probably speaking from a tech support perspective where you have had to fix systems that haven't been patched for years and that caused issues. Well, most of the population would be screwed by laws like this thru no fault of their own.

> Grandma ... should definitely be ... culpable

Not downvoting just suggesting that the sarcasm might detract from comprehensibility for English learners. It detracts nothing from the point by just saying plainly that she should not be.

Some ISPs here in Germany don't even allow third party routers.

I would argue both.

In order to make copyright infringement marginally harder, you take away the utility of broadly available, free or low cost wifi.

An entire nation has to lose a utility or pay a "copyright tax"... For what benefit?

until wifi access is declared a right?

I would say its more of a lazy law than just plain stupid as lazy law writing is far worse at times

I mostly find it offensive that between the company selling access, and people giving access away for free, it's the latter that would be liable for what their users do.

There are moral and pragmatic reasons against liability, but they are not nearly as glaring as that inequality.

> That's a really stupid law and it's one of the reasons why Germany is so far behind when it comes to building great internet/tech startups.

Germany is doing pretty good actually. I visit German start-ups with great regularity and both the quantity and the quality leave very little to be desired.

Munich, Hamburg, Berlin all have a fair number of very interesting start-up companies quite a few of which I think will end up doing just fine in the longer term.

Fyi the phrase "leave very little to be desired" means the opposite of what you probably meant.

Why. If nearly everything they do is great, that phrase should capture exactly that - or am I wrong here?

Is free WiFi really a prerequisite of great tech startups?

I'd say their expensive/restrictive mobile infrastructure would be a bigger hindrance.

I don't think the point was the free Wifi. I believe the point is that a government capable of such a stupid law is capable of more stupid laws that tech companies don't care for.

> That's a really stupid law and it's one of the reasons why Germany is so far behind when it comes to building great internet/tech startups.

I am sorry, but I am just unable to join the dots. Could you articulate more?

> That's a really stupid law and it's one of the reasons why Germany is so far behind when it comes to building great internet/tech startups.

They're just taking security seriously.

I would posit it--cheekily--as

> They're just taking copyright law seriously. :-)

So a hotel offering WiFi to guests is liable for everything that guest does? Ridiculous.

Hotels get around this by hiring ISPs to run the WiFi. Which means it's always overpriced and slow as crap.

Are german ISPs required to "pass the blame forward"? If not, whats stopping everyone registering themselves as an ISP?

The price and the requirements, I guess?

Its a hassle. Even larger non-profit organizations (Freifunk for example) which provide free open wifi route their traffic via VPN to a country without "Störerhaftung" (Sweden) to eliminate the risk of getting adhortatory letters.

Maybe everyone there should start doing that? Even an individual could provide free wifi but route it through a foreign VPN service.

For that matter, with a law that stupid I'm surprised the major ISPs there aren't making hay by offering a VPN service with your internet account and integrating it into their broadband routers.

Actually, Freifunk Rheinland did register as an ISP and built a sizeable backbone network. They provide internet access to many Freifunk communities without any risk of liability.

Didn't know this. Thanks for this bit of information here.

You have to implement Vorratsdatenspeicherung which is basically an API to query who had this IP at a given point in time in case of an investigation.

I thought they were going to change that, no?

http://www.zeit.de/digital/internet/2016-05/wlan-hotspots-st...

https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http:...

Same here in France, the owner of the Wifi AP is liable in case of illegal downloads. However a large majority of ISP implemented a separate free Wifi that is independent of your connection. You have access to all the free wifi AP from this ISP if you don't opt-out.

How is this different then a phone? Are you liable for the conversations others have on your phone?

If you permanently have your phone outside your front door, and a passerby uses your phone to commit/coordinate crimes, you may well be liable, yes.

So are the owners of pay phones liable?

No. They're exploited by common carriers, whose status gives them judicial exemptions.

I am trying to think of a criminal activity that you can conduct over the phone analogous to piracy (but can't come up with one).

It doesn't have to be analogous to piracy, for example: if I use your phone to discuss a bank robbery with my partners in crime, even without your knowledge, you could be charged with conspiracy.

Depending on local laws of course.

Same deal in New Zealand. Except the law to "3 strikes" so if you receive 3 infringement notices within a 9 month window you can expect to be "prosecuted".

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