Open Wi-Fi 'outlawed' by Digital Economy Bill

Image via Wikipedia

clipped from news.zdnet.co.uk The government will not exempt universities, libraries and small businesses providing open Wi-Fi services from its Digital Economy Bill copyright crackdown, according to official advice released earlier this week. This would leave many organisations open to the same penalties for copyright infringement as individual subscribers, potentially including disconnection from the internet, leading legal experts to say it will become impossible for small businesses and the like to offer Wi-Fi access. "This is going to be a very unfortunate measure for small businesses, particularly in a recession, many of whom are using open free Wi-Fi very effectively as a way to get the punters in," Edwards said. "Even if they password protect, they then have two options — to pay someone like The Cloud to manage it for them, or take responsibility themselves for becoming an ISP effectively, and keep records for everyone they assign connections to, which is an impossible burden for a small café."

Related articles by Zemanta

• UK Bill Would Outlaw Open Wi-Fi (mobile.slashdot.org)
• UK Digital Economy Bill will wipe out indie WiFi hotspots in libraries, unis, cafes (boingboing.net)
• US to shoot itself in the leg! Open Wi-Fi 'outlawed' (dccrowley.posterous.com)
• Is UK Public WIFI Doomed? (thenextweb.com)
• UK Bill Would Outlaw Open Public Wifi Hotspots [WiFi] (gizmodo.com)
• Bill In UK May Disallow Public Wi-Fi (techcrunch.com)
• Bill in UK may disallow public wi-fi (crunchgear.com)