I came across this article on ZDnet a few weeks ago and the title grabbed me and made me sit up straight: “Pub fined £8000 for wifi copyright infringement”. In short the story was as follows: A pub in the UK had a fine levied against them in a civil case taken by the copyright owner of content that was accessed/downloaded illegally through a public wifi hotspot in the pub.

Now this type of case is very rare and raises several questions;

• What was the content accessed, and how did the copyright owner find out?
• Why was the civil suit taken against the pub instead of the network owner The Cloud.
• What effect will this have on future cases in regards to liability for ISP’s and the accessibility of public wifi networks?

Now there are a number of points that need definition. First there is a “public (wifi) network”; this is a network that is accessible by any member of the general public and in such not limited to any specific group or type of people (not the legal description but close enough imho). Now a wifi network that is broadcasting in a public space and which offers paid or unpaid access could under this definition be considered a public (wifi) network as also described in the legal advice sent to The Cloud by the law firm Faegre & Benson on 17 August: “Wi-Fi hotspots in public and enterprise environments providing access to the internet to members of the public, free or paid, are public communications services“. Now, operators of said public communications services are by law not liable for content downloaded through the service provided. So the owners of the pub could argued this point in court. However instead they appeared to have settled out of court. The £8000 euro awarded to the plaintiffs is also not a fine but instead a “compensation” for damages incurred. I sincerely hope that it is actually a settlement as that would also mean that the legal precedent is questionable and that we won’t see a raft of these cases shutting down public wifi access all over the UK.

A second issue to consider here is the EU wide Data Retention legislation. This legislation (in short) means that telecommunication providers, including Internet access providers, need to retain records of their clients usage (who, when, where & what). For w provider of public wifi access to comply there would have to be a once off registration process and a repeated authentication process. That way usage can be linked to the individual and comprehensive records can be produced. Some wifi providers will argue that this is not necessary or that this can only be done through a charging process. Both are wrong. While providers theoretically do not have to start retaining this data until asked to do so by the government it is best practice to do so. The “paid argument” is also faulty as it is perfectly feasible to ask a user to register the first time they use a service and hence create a user profile. They will then be assigned authentication details (username & password, token etc.) which will be used to authenticate each time they use the network. Now this requires a bit more work and a capable network backend and this is why some providers prefer to avoid this. If this registration & authentication had been in place it would have been very easy to determine the actual defendant in this case.

However it is my suspicion that while The Cloud normally uses an authentication system that in this case the pub and/or its staff might have been handing out login details to its patrons while bypassing the registration process. This means that there is no actual record of who has been accessing what data, where or when. The chain of evidence would end with the pub owner who, if they acted in this manner, created a situation whereby the tracebility ended with them. Hence it could be argued during a civil case where the standard of proof was the balance of probabilities that they are ultimately responsible. To fight this in court would possibly be a long drawn out process that would cost far in excess of a £8000 settlement payment. I really doubt that this went through the full process of a court hearing, however I do not have the actual file on this case so can’t say this with absolute certainty.

CONCLUSION: While this case looks serious it will not mean the end of public wifi access in the UK or Europe. It does however serve one purpose; if you provide or want to provide public wifi access in your venue (whether it’s a pub, hotel airport or any other location) make sure that your network uses a registration, authentication & data retention. We at Airappz have been providing this for years and alleviates all kinds of worries both for the customer & ourselves.

Sources:

• Does net cut-off plan break EU law?

• Pub 'fined £8k' for Wi-Fi copyright infringement

• ZDNet, Wi Fi and the Digital Economy Bill

I recently received an email from Mark Finlay with a fantastic idea: “how about a cross-border business networking event between the Limerick & Belfast regions scheduled around the Ulster – Munster rugby match? It’s a great initiative by Shannon Development delivered by Presidents’ Club trustees Raymond Sexton and Mark J Finlay with contribution from former Ireland, Ulster and Lions outhalf David Humphreys.”

It’s a fantastic opportunity for businesses from the Limerick region to strength their bonds with Belfast based business. Belfast in a dynamic and innovative region and a great first step in international expansion for every starting (or established) Irish business. Transport form Limerick is arranged and a full program of networking, stimulating discussion and learning will be followed by watching the rugby match from premium seats in the new Grandstand and after the match we will meet the Ulster players & coaching staff.The full program can be downloaded here.

There are only 20 places available. If you are interested please email me and I will put your name on the list. Please include full business details in the email. Places are assigned on a first come, first served basis!

When I was on my way to Business Camp Dublin last week I got a phone-call that made me sit up and nearly crash the car. The statement was simple: “Dell has sold their Lodz plant to Foxconn”.

While this move might make perfect sense on a balance sheet somewhere I find it shocking. so I’ve done a bit a digging into this over the last few days and have pieced together a timeline. In January 2009 Dell announced that they are moving their production from the plant in Limerick, Ireland to Lodz, Poland. This would lead to 2000+ people losing their jobs. Several months afterwards it emerges that the Polish government used 54.4 million euro (EU funds) as a payment to entice Dell to move their production facility to Poland. This cannot be seen in any other light than unfair state interference in the free market resulting in direct the loss of jobs in Ireland.
Now as it stands that is bad enough, however to add insult to injury Dell has now announced that they are selling the Lodz plant to Foxconn (a manufacturer of computer components and supplier of Dell). Now I might be a terrible cynic but I strongly suspect that the plans to sell the plant to Foxconn were already being hatched when the announcement was being made that the Limerick plant would be shut down. The move to Poland put the production capacity in a low-cost country making it much easier to offload. So that’s 54.4 million euro spent on facilitating the sale and possibly increasing the value of the sold asset. Put this in comparison to the paltry 14.5 million that the EU has pledged to Limerick to facilitate retraining off and job creation for those laid off by Dell. It’s a 69.9 million euro exercise with only one benefactor: DELL.

Put that in comparison to Dells’ complete refusal to do anything to create employment for those laid off in Limerick. I personally spoke to them repeatedly about support for the Greenhouse Incubator and they wouldn’t even let us have some of their used office furniture. Direct appeals to Sean Corkery & Michael Dell fell on deaf ears. I also know of several other organisations that approached them for a support for job-creation initiative. All were turned away…..

The effects actual effects of Dells move from Limerick are quite often underestimated. While the direct job losses were 2510 the total effect for the region is far worse: “it will cost the region 9,500 jobs and suck €117m out of the local economy, a secret Irish government report admits”.

And what does the Irish government do? It has a lot of meetings, sets up a task force that doesn’t really do anything and pisses whatever little money they get from the EU down the drain. This country is being run by imcompetent & inept morons and it’s high time we got rid of them and replaced them with a valid, long term alternative!

I’ve been using PDA & phone based Sat-Nav devices since somewhere around 2002. In order to be able to view the device safely while driving I have used a long series of mounts and cradles. Dash-mount, windshield mount, vent mount, active holder, passive holder, you name it. All have managed at some point in time to come unstuck resulting in the PDA dropping into my lap (or worse into the footwell) while driving.
No more!
Some months ago I bought a Gomadic windshield mounted holder for my HTC Touch. I ordered it from the US for the very affordable price of $24.95. Peanuts at the current exchange rate. The device arrived in the post less than two weeks later and it has been in use ever since.
It attaches to the windshield using a suction cup, but this one has a screw attachment at the rear allowing you to tighten the hold on the windshield.
It has a long flexible neck that lets you “aim” the device in any direction that you would want to.
The device has so far failed to fall off the windshield in spite of the bumpy Irish roads. I have used it with the HTC Touch but it also holds a Cubic Telecom Pirelli phone or a clunky Nokia N95 in a tight grip.
In short I can strongly recommend this holder to anybody looking for a high quality, affordable holder for their PDA or phone!

… tenminste in Ierland. De Nederbelg (hij woonde tot voor een paar jaar in Lanaken) Evert Bopp vertelt op zijn weblog hoe hij in Ierland last kreeg met de belastingcontroleur omdat die allerlei nevenbedrijfjes vond op zijn Facebook profiel.

Het verhaal werd opgepikt door allerlei media: Ierse kranten, Silicon Valley roddelsite Valleywag, en Nederlandse nieuwssites.

Zouden de belastingdiensten ook bij ons de social networking sites afschuimen? In Nederland allicht wel, daar is al langer een heuse fraudezoekmachine bekend. In België? Daar mag je blij zijn als ze je belastingaangifte al lezen vrees ik!